If Necessary, Turn On

People think awareness solves everything. It doesn’t. Awareness is more like turning on the light in a room. The moment you do, you begin to see all the mess.

Or you never turn the light on at all, and instead stumble through the dark, crashing into things until you fall to the floor, bruised. You grow hopeless, wondering what it was you hit. You get back up, decide to walk in another direction, hit something else, and fall again. What you were supposed to do was drag yourself back to the place where you had the chance to turn the light on, and take it.

Then you can finally see the mess.

This is the beginning; or the end.

You may lose hope. You may convince yourself that you will never get better, give up entirely, or simply say “I’ll deal with it someday,” turn the light back off, and leave the room.

Who brought all these things into this room? What are these stacks of books even for? Why is the dusty floor covered in memories? What is this calendar on the wall, filled with plans? And the cigarette butts on the table?

What was underneath all this mess? Was it really the comfort I thought I wanted?

There it is again — another crossroads. Is it even worth cleaning this room if there’s nothing underneath it worth finding?

Maybe it is. Maybe I can change the things that make this room what it is, piece by piece.

But first, I have to clean the mess, with the light of awareness behind me.

---

Curtains, sunlight, a glance, darkness, emptiness, or the lights in other people’s rooms, cold air, opening the window, jumping, no, the music player on the floor, a song, a cracked wall, another door hidden behind the collapsed bookshelf, where is the handle, how did I never see these things before, who helped me turn the light on?