Temperature Check

A friend of mine told me she'd do a temperature check on me in a couple days to see how I'm feeling. I loved this analogy. I don't literally have a fever; she means it as a metaphor for my mood. For some reason, the way I feel has always been influenced by nature. It's as if the empath in me is feeling everything, all the time, even for what I see when I look outside my window. Seasonal depression is real, even in the summer. But not long ago, I realized that life - for me at least - is less about the season and more about the weather. I'll take a warm storm over chilly spring days when the flowers haven't bloomed yet and the trees are still bare. I'll take the sun for an hour in the middle of winter when the rest of the days are overcast. I'll take a bonfire in the brisk winds of fall when the leaves are crisp. Similarly, I'll take a good day in a sea of depression. It's easy to say the past five years have been hard. What's more challenging is finding the light inside this seemingly infinite tunnel of darkness. But the light is there, not just at the end of the tunnel. There are flickers of it along the way. My friends are the torches that line these walls. Their glimmers illuminate this path I'm walking on. If my gratitude is well-timed, and I can be present for even a moment, I will look around and find the life I've been searching for. I'll see the dandelions that grew through the cracks of this concrete, for even hard-as-stone material can break. I'll pluck one, blow it a kiss, and wish for this warmth to stay with me through the cold.