“Today my forest is dark. The trees are sad, and the butterflies have broken wings.” -Raine Cooper

As I sit here in the corner of a dark room, I feel completely empty, but I know deep down I'm really not. I'm just hoping for a day where I feel at home. I'm longing for a place so filled with love, nothing else has room to grow. I am heartbroken. I feel like a butterfly who just got her wings, then immediately got them ripped off.

I’m sure we have all been there. We’ve all had a moment where we wished it would all end. Where hope seems very distant and the pain is all we can feel. Empty isn’t even a word to describe the hollowness in your body. You wish you could feel something, but you’ve just been numb. Not only numb to the world, but numb to yourself.

Amidst your pain, you have to options: embrace it and allow it to identify you, or embrace it and allow it to change you. If you allow it to identify you, you will always feel empty, miserable and numb. You will miss the joy found in the simple things such as a dog’s slobbery kiss, or a sunrise in the valley. You will become numb to the very things that keep us all alive. If you allow it to change you, things may be very different for you. You can look back at the times you have been numb, and be able to help other people who are in that same place. You can see the art in heartache, and help others to be able to paint a joyful picture down the road from all of the pain. The beautiful sad colors of blue, gray and black could paint a picture of a dark, never-ending hole, or the moon reflecting on the ocean. The same colors have the opportunity to make many different paintings. Perception is everything.

Today, you may be like me. You may be sitting in a dark corner of your room wishing the pain would end. Maybe you’re even wishing you could be numb, for your sadness seems to ache even in the deepest parts of your body. There is nothing fun about being numb. Everything becomes ordinary, even the most extraordinary things in life— like a sunrise or a beautiful child’s hug. I challenge you to get up from that dark corner, no matter how painful it may be. I challenge you to take a piece of paper and write “my dark corner” on the top of it. Write out everything that is making you feel empty. Seeing it written down may make it hurt more, but at least you’re acknowledging the pain. At the end of that list, write out the things you would miss in your life, and the things other people would miss about you if you decided to stay in that dark corner. To some, your mom would be lonely, or your child would become abandoned and starved for love. For others, the friend you occasionally see would become lonely and longing for companionship.

Although the dark corner is easy to stay in, there is nothing fun about it. You dwell in the “what if”’s and the “could have been”’s. Oftentimes, that dark corner starts to feel like home, but don’t allow it to be your home. The sunset is way too beautiful to miss. A child’s hug is way too warm to pass up. Life may seem like that dark corner to you, but if you don’t get out of that corner, your life will never be filled with the joyous sounds of love.