Last weekend, I just felt…blah.

As a professional representative of “living your best life,” I get stuck thinking I should be able to engineer mine well enough to avoid dull moments. Like I’m just not working hard enough at it.

Nice try, but no. Empty space can be like a slip’n’slide for our fears and insecurities. We have one unsettling thought and then here comes a parade of eager, wet children tumbling down after it. “You don’t know what you’re doing!” “You can’t call yourself a healer!” And, “Are you even helping anyone?”

It seems absurd looking back. But from inside, it feels like an itchy sweater that’s sewn into my skin. No amount of scratching brings relief. 

These “moments” can last any amount of time. Minutes, hours, days, even years. 

I did spend years being hopelessly depressed. Maybe that’s why they can feel so intense. Or maybe that’s just how emotions work; they’re designed to seem like multidimensional portals we’re doomed to swirl around in forever. 

Anyway, I started writing a poem in the midst of this blah day. And on this blah day, the poem seemed pretty blah, too. Maybe it had one or two good lines, but it needed too much work. Actually, all of my poetry is bad. Why do I bother writing anyway? (WHERE ARE ALL THESE WET CHILDREN’S PARENTS?!)

The next day seemed to be going the way of the blah day before it. Then, suddenly, (well, after an hour of meditating, because I remembered for the 957th time to be patient with myself) the poem didn’t seem so bad and actually, the lines that needed work were coming together. And the things I liked about it were actually worth saying. The storm was passing. I watched myself weather it. It wasn’t earth-shattering, but it was pretty cool. So here’s the poem. It’s called, “The Space Between the Sparkle.”

Today 

never had to be the best day.

Not all days can be, after all.

Some are just the glue,

a mix of simple ingredients 

holding us together.

A day to lay the bricks.

A day to tend the fields.

A day to water.

A day to rest.

The minutes crawl.

The hours drift.

There are no breakthroughs,

no explosions

and no photographs taken.

The kind of day we crave when we’re too busy.

The kind of day we hate when we feel alone.

We seem to be moving backward

toward things we left behind.

We can’t see the bigger plan 

so we start to question everything.

Don’t be fooled by your perception.

The unremarkable is just as holy

as the fireworks display.

It’s the foundation,

the boring, solid backdrop

for surprise to be seen again.

The ocean reflects every inch of sky,

the blue, the clouds, the Sun.

Don’t lose hope in the space between the sparkle.

Every drop makes up the one.