Sunlight People...

You know them. They make you happy with their presence. They light up any room. They are joy bringers.

No one is up all the time and no one lives only in the sunlight. Everyone, including the light bringers, have cloudy, dark days.

But there are people in this world that seem to truly exist in the sun more than others. People who give a smile to all, most especially to those who seem to deserve it less. They seem to be the people that see the good in even the worst people. And forgive, easily, the darkness in the best people without question or effort.

I have not surrounded myself with these people in my life. And I always wondered why...why were there not more light people in my life. And then I realized that perhaps maybe I was the sunlight person for a lot of darkness in others...

It feels immediately wrong to say this about myself. Wrong, very wrong. How could I claim that? But I think it is true. When I look at my life, I have had a gravitational pull of people towards me. People who were sick, suffering, unhappy and I never thought twice about it. Why they wanted me in their lives, why I was so wiling to stay in theirs.

When I got sober, most everyone in my life was angry. Like super ridiculously angry and rageful. It was what we had in common. An ex-boyfriend used to comment to me all the time, “I don’t know why you hang with us, you are not like us...you are good to your soul.” And I used to hate it when he would say that. I would get angry. I would usually do something to prove that I wasn’t all that good. But I think it pissed me off so much because I knew he was right. I was different than them, and I always thought that such a terrible thing. In the end, it turned out to be my salvation. It was the one thing that I found about myself that was worth saving when the saving was the only thing left to do but die.

Now, I am not attempting to bolster my own self image or make myself out a saint. Anyone who knows me, knows this couldn’t be father than the truth. What I found was that there was this sunlighty person buried under neurosis, trauma, pain, sorrow, insecurity and loss. And if that was true for me, perhaps it is also true for others.

I spent a lot of years attempting to bring out the sunlight in others. And recently I realized that not only that that isn’t my job, but it is something that only you can do for yourself. Being a sunlight person is a choice. And you are the only one that can make it. You can complain and let the issues of daily living grind you down, the every day losses, epic tragedies, unfairness of life and they can become all that you are. Or, or you can use all those very same things to lighten your being, become lighter and more free, allowing yourself to be consumed in light and spread it in every direction of your life.

I have given this concept a lifetime of thought and I have come to the very simple conclusion that sunlight people experience just as much rain, clouds and storms as others, they just see the purpose of these things differently. And their reaction to these events is quite different. They see each storm as an opportunity to serve, to love, to give, to uncover a new part of themselves in an effort to serve others. That is what sunlight people do. They epitomize life happening to them, to life happening for them. Giving both equal importance and impact. And then, then, they make the decision to be happy anyway. To feel the joy anyway. To give a smile, a hug, any warmth to anyone who needs it.

I have felt the darkness creeping in for some time now. Society’s demise coming quicker and more completely. More accidents, more death, more fear and loathing. More hate, distrust and dis-ease. So the path for me has been easy to see. My job, is to continue to clear away the parts of myself that cloud the channel. To work hard to keep myself clean and clear so that I can continue to be a sunlight person.

Somehow it feels wrong to count myself among them. But at long last, truth can just be truth. And my ego’s fear that you will disagree can just be a vapor that dissipates in the gloaming.

We all are made up of shifting tides of darkness and light. There are those that allow the darkness to consume them. And there are those that decide to burn the darkness with light. I pray that I remain committed to that particular cause for the rest of my days. And find contentment, purpose and love always within the light. And soak it up and in, only to be willing to radiate it out again...fearing not the darkness of myself or others. Once you know how to burn it with the light, darkness loses every time.