Storm light on a gum tree in Wandearah SA. It had been stormy all day and just before sunset, the light appeared as the sun headed below the horizon.
I saw a quote today by Toby Mac that I loved - "not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path". It really made me think about the storms in my life that have cleared my paths. While I was pondering that, I also thought about the fact that from a photography perspective, storm light at golden hour (golden hour is the last hour of light before sunset) is absolutely amazing. From something dark and destructive comes this amazing light that gives everything around it a warm glow. The trees light up as the raindrops on the leaves reflect the setting sun and the light is an amazing golden red colour. It is light that you don't tend to see unless a storm is in the general area. The thing about a storm is that it is always easier to face if you don't face it alone. It is always less scary when you aren't home alone.
My story...
My life has been anything but smooth sailing. I have spoken in my previous blogs about the last twenty years feeling a bit like an exercise in 'come at me storm, show me what you've got'. Some of my storms have been all consuming. At the time, they have felt like disasters that will never ever be over. A storm is always like that- while you are in the middle of it, you feel as though that light will never break through the clouds and show you that life is worth living again. In 2008, I was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm... BIG STORM. However, the light came through the clouds, life moved on eventually and that storm felt like a distant memory. While home alone with my daughter in 2011, I suffered a grand mal seizure - that storm was all consuming and it really did feel never ending. Because I had never had a seizure before, the doctors weren't sure what was happening, so I was put on medication and banned from driving for three months. My first reaction was to allow myself to drown in the waves and the wind of this storm. I lived an hour away from work - this was an impossible situation. I was scared to go out in public in case I had another seizure and terrified that the medication wouldn't control it. I couldn't drive and I felt as though my life as I knew it had ended.
This particular storm was a storm that continued to affect my life even after I recovered from the seizure and got my licence back, it was the last straw in a long line of storms and I decided I was fed up. I pulled back from my friends, isolated myself from church, and threw myself into work. This made it all harder than it needed to be. The medication essentially works by slowing down the brain so that it doesn't overload and misfire. This has been a massive frustration, things that came easily before aren't as easy now. My memory is shocking and I find that sometimes I go to say something and my brain hasn't quite caught up yet, so the word just isn't there. I also find that sometimes I will just insert a random word into a sentence, because my brain is trying to sort itself out and thinking too far ahead. In 2016, after having our dog put down, I was so upset I didn't eat tea which meant I forgot my medication for the first time in five years. The next day I had another massive seizure. My specialist gave me a diagnosis of traumatic onset epilepsy, likely caused by the aneurysm (wasn't that the gift that just kept giving). I was reported to the licensing bureau - lost my licence for another three months and my medication dosage was upped.
Reach out!
This particular storm, although one of the most traumatic storms I can remember, was actually a storm that cleared a path for me. Although it does still cause issues from time to time especially if I am tired or trying to focus on too many things at once, the medication they use for the seizures is also a mild antidepressant. At the time when this all happened, I had been struggling for a while. I didn't realise that I was depressed and I certainly would not have faced it and gotten help if I had. The medication helped the depression within around nine months. I really clearly remember waking up one morning and seeing light at the end of tunnel, when it had previously been totally bleak and dark. I learnt so many lessons from this storm. There is always a light, you may not see it straight away, but when you look back, you can see that amazing storm light that shone through in the darkest moment as the storm cleared. Don't shut out the people you love in the darkness, I did that and I shouldn't have. It left me in my storm for longer than I needed to be there, because I was hiding. As hard as it is, have people you trust that love you that you aren't scared to be real with. Let them see you in the good and the bad. They are often the people that show you that your storm is actually clearing the way, or they point out the amazing light that is visible on the horizon. The people that love you the most are the people that hold the torch in the dark and pray for you in the bad times. They are the ones that can show you the way or weather the storm with you. If you are buried in the darkness today, reach out to someone, don't weather it alone and don't let it overwhelm you. If you don't have someone you trust, talk to someone... I have included some links of places that you can get help.
You can also try a local church. There are many that have links to organisations or can recommend counsellors or organisations that can help.
Dawn breaks after a stormy night in Wandearah. The light was incredible that morning. The morning was incredibly dark and unremarkable until the sun peeped over the horizon.