COME TO LIFE

Being stuck in a hole mentally is no fun, though sometimes it’s best to relax, sit in the darkness, and make it your friend before you’re ready to climb out and embrace the light again—a bit like Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises.

I remember one time an ex-girlfriend called me from some faraway land she was traveling through and told me, “In my darkest moments, I think of you.” It touched me deeply—the idea that I was some kind of light amidst her gloom was a true honour, like a knight-errant holding a lamp to illuminate the path ahead through the forest of the night.

Sometimes I think about who I think of in my darkest moments. While the predictable answer might be my closest family and friends, my more creative answer would be George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Sinatra, or Kanye West—three characters who, in their own ways, remind me that hope, swagger, and reinvention are always possible, even in the shadows of despair.

Just the other night, resting in the darkness as if I were in my own isolation tank, I played Come to Life by Kanye West from his tenth studio album, Donda, and felt as if I had undergone a musical baptism. The catharsis of the track lifted my weary soul like a spiritual force, returning me to a state of acceptance about hitting a temporary low point—one that, perhaps, was necessary before rising again.

Religious analogies aside, I suppose it could have been any track—the Sanctus from Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, for example. But I was on shuffle mode with my mopey playlist, and I chose to take what came up as a sign.

Don't you wish the night would go numb?
I've been feelin' low for so long
I ain't had a high in so long
I been in the dark for so long
Night is always darkest 'fore the dawn
Gotta make my mark 'fore I'm gone