Dark Side of the Morning

Although I still get to work more than an hour before the sun rises here, I have noticed that it is beginning to get light out earlier than a few weeks ago. We may be finally coming out of this winter, which has seemed to drag on forever.

While I begin the day on the dark side at least 5 days out of the week, I am definitely a child of the sun. The pigment in my skin illustrates this in the warmer months, easily bronzing if I spend any time at all outside. This is a nod to my father's Native American heritage, which I appreciate much more than the easily burned skin associated with my mother's Irish background.

Being a creature of the sun I like to shine as brightly as I can, as often as I can. Not in an overpowering, attention seeking way...but in a way that can be appreciated by many, even if it goes unnoticed. Whether it's smiling at a stranger who briefly looks up from their feet as they walk toward me or cracking a silly joke to a coworker who is having a bad day, I like to spread the shine I hold within me. But like anything other than the sun, including the moon which looks so beautiful at times because it reflects the shine of the sun, I also have a dark side.

I am a very balanced person in almost every regard, and my dark side is no exception. As brightly as I can shine at any given moment, I also have a drastic dark side to maintain the balance. I have this dark side completely under control nowadays, and never let anyone see much of it at all. Yet it remains.

Sometimes I am thankful for my dark side. I can tap into it for creative purposes, or it can give me great perspective by showing me how bad things could really be in a given situation. I'd have to guess that anyone who is as much of an optimist as I am must have a very controlled, yet very dark side. No good without evil, no right without wrong, and no light without dark.

While this album, which I regard as one of the top three most important albums in history, is not really dark, the title kind of stuck out to me this morning. It's been a while since I gave it a good listen, so here it is helping me get through the morning. Helping me transition from the darkest part of my day to the brightest.