In the light, In the darkness

Baha'i folks are taught that there is no evil, only the absence of good, as with a darkened room. You cannot fill a room with darkness, but you can remove the light.

I am trying to keep this in mind as my small, insignificant life seems to spin perilously out of my control.

I'm not losing my cool and, for that, I am grateful. It seems one of these recent tests must have given me some immeasurably valuable lesson of how to keep from losing it like I have so often in the past. I am an emotional person by nature, so this time of calm takes me by surprise, no doubt. I am struggling, it seems, in all areas of my life right now. Family has become a stress, though the majority of it is not my father's illness as I'd expect, but my sister's inability to see herself as anything but the saint in all of this. She is too much like our mother for my comfort, and I know that means, in the long run, we will likely lose touch with one another, though I hate the thought. She is my sister, and I love her as I might love my own child someday-a sentiment I have no doubt she can't understand- so the thought of her ending up anything like our mother, whom I've spoken to two or three times over a period of three years now, pains me deeply. I know what it is to have someone like that in my life, though, and I know it's not something healthy. The alcoholic tendencies are already visible, and the holier-than-though attitude is only growing. I am sad to see it all, but I have no idea how to stop it.

My head spins with the ideas of love in my life, the boys that are trying to step up that don't seem to fit in that spot and the ones who seem to ignore me completely who seem to be exactly what I need. I wonder if my father will see his first grandbaby born, or if I will say goodbye to him alone. I don't know how to handle all of this, and still have hope for the future. I can't imagine a life without my daddy, and the looming diagnosis of MS is exactly what that tells me. Eventually, his nervous system will shut down completely. It hurts to think of this, but I know now that it's a very real possibility. I can't imagine waking up someday and him just not being there when I need him. I wonder what will become of me without my daddy to lean on.

I'm a little less numb than I'd like to be right now.