Finding joy in the shadows

There are days when hope feels distant, when the world seems to dim. This page is for those moments, a gentle reminder that even in the darkest corners, sparks of happiness can be found. Let's rediscover them together.

The Melted Clocks

This week was heavy.

 

Not the kind of heavy you can explain with one bad day or one difficult conversation. It was the kind that builds quietly, one trigger at a time, until your nervous system feels like it's being held together by a single frayed thread.

 

There were the unexpected reminders of the past.

 

The moments that made my heart race before my mind could catch up.

 

The familiar feeling of looking perfectly composed on the outside while internally screaming and trying to convince myself that I was safe.

 

By the end of the week, I felt emotionally bankrupt.

 

I had reached that place where even the smallest inconvenience felt like too much. The place where you're not crying because of what's happening today—you're crying because your heart has been carrying too much for too long.

 

I wasn't looking for anything profound. I was simply cleaning. One dusty box led to another, and before I knew it, I had opened a time capsule. Inside were treasures I had almost forgotten existed.

Tiny handprints pressed into fading construction paper.

 

My son's first attempts at writing complete sentences, each one proudly stretching across the page with letters marching in every direction except straight. There were family drawings where everyone had impossible smiles and stick-figure limbs. A kindergarten worksheet where he'd been asked to describe Frankenstein's monster.

 

His answer was a masterpiece:

 

"Grean."

 

"Scaree."

 

"Big."

 

"Frendlee."

 

Every adjective was wonderfully misspelled.

 

Every word was perfect.

 

I laughed out loud. Not the polite laugh you give someone else's joke. A real laugh. The kind that surprises you because you had forgotten your body still knew how.

 

Then I found the drawing.

It stopped me.

 

It wasn't something I'd remembered him making, but there it was—a careful pencil sketch filled with clocks that appeared to be melting over branches and tables, flowing like candle wax. It reminded me instantly of the surreal paintings I'd admired for years, though I don't think he had ever seen them as a child. He had simply imagined a world where time itself could bend.

 

I stared at that picture for a long time… maybe because time has always felt different after trauma. Some moments last only seconds but live inside us for decades. Other years disappear into a blur. The past barges into the present without knocking, while the future sometimes feels impossible to imagine.

PTSD has a way of melting time.

 

A memory can become now in an instant. A smell can erase twenty years. A sound can transport you to a place you never wanted to visit again.

 

Maybe that's why his drawing felt so familiar.

 

Not because it was sad.

 

Because it understood something I couldn't quite explain.

 

As I sat on the floor surrounded by construction paper, crooked handwriting, and tiny fingerprints preserved in paint, I realized something else.

Trauma has stolen many things from me.

 

It has taken peace.

 

It has taken certainty.

 

It has taken years I can never reclaim.

 

But it hasn't taken everything.

 

It hasn't taken the little boy who proudly announced every new accomplishment.

 

It hasn't erased afternoons spent coloring at the kitchen table.

 

It hasn't stolen the memories hidden inside those boxes, patiently waiting for me to find them again.

 

Sometimes healing doesn't arrive through a breakthrough in therapy or the perfect coping strategy. Sometimes healing comes disguised as a faded handprint. A misspelled word. A child's drawing that somehow says exactly what your adult heart needed to hear.

 

By the end of the week, nothing about my circumstances had changed. The triggers still happened. The memories still existed. The diagnosis hadn't disappeared. But something inside me had softened.

 

For a little while, I wasn't focused on what had been taken from me. I was reminded of everything that remained. Maybe that's what hope looks like some days. Not fireworks. Not dramatic transformations. Just a dusty box in the corner of a closet. A handful of papers covered in fingerprints. A child who grew into a remarkable young man. And a page full of melted clocks reminding me that even when time feels distorted, love somehow keeps perfect time.

This week was heavy.

 

But tucked inside all that weight was an unexpected gift.

 

And this time...

 

the memory that found me didn't hurt.

 

It healed.