When shadows come calling

The past week has been one that has seen a lot of my friends and I face shadows. One painful thing about shadows is that they bring paleness. Paleness bears the rancor of emptiness and dearth. Shadows block the sun and leave you shivering and cold. Shadows leave you wondering whether you are that bad to deserve the dish served onto your lap.

Some shadows come because you refuse to be swayed. People will fight you for telling them they are wrong. People will fight you for your refusing to entrust your assets to their care because in the past they have proven that they are not good stewards. But still they will bring shadows of backbiting because you won’t bend. They will cite your past mistakes; invoke the ghosts of the past just because you do not want to dance to their tune.

Some shadows are just always lurking, keeping tabs on you like the best spy agency. A moment of happiness or breakthrough on your part is met with blistering farce and hatred. The past re-visits you even in your sleep and all you do is twist and turn.

And there is this shadow that brings me so much pain – The shadow of telling the truth about where you have been. Wow!! I thought coming out into the open will make things easy. My philosophy tells me that there is nothing better than the truth. The premise being if you tell the truth it will always be the truth and you will never have to scratch your head to remember what you said because the truth never changes. Telling the truth brought back the shadows into my life. The pain, the years in the wilderness, the losses, strained relationships and the irreversible mark left in me suddenly came flooding back. Just because I laid my chest bare and told the truth.

That  is one shadow I do not understand. It is painful beyond amputation; you have this imp irritatingly buzzing near your face asking if your telling the truth did you any good? Then the past unrolls – the imp mocks you , dares you to deny God and perish, tells you your straight walk has brought you bent dividends, points out those that overtake on the left who seem to be all sunshine when you are all gloom.

But I aint giving up this fight. Like a bad dream I will come out of it. Like a recurrent nightmare I will fight it off. Shadows are not my portion. Shadows are just commas in my life sentence and I will not pause or linger on them because they will blot and become a full stop. I am not scared of my past because it is my past , it bears my pain , mistakes , permanent scars , achievements , benchmarks and all. I will not let the shadows block my sight. After all, they are nothing but shadows created by light reflecting against me!!

And I know that the sun will rise tomorrow and I will still seek to defy the shadows by walking in the light.

I do not have any other option.