Choosing a blog title. Journal Entry: October 3, 2014

Today is the day I decided to take my painful journal entries and turn them into a blog. I was cleaning off my desk to prepare for my new adventure into the blogging world, and I picked up a picture I had painted with my niece. Before dday, my niece had been coming to my house once a week for art class. Her mother home schools her and had asked if I would be willing to help Belle with her art lesson while Mom went to her therapy appointment not far from our house. I love art, especially painting, and I adore my eight-year-old niece, Belle, so of course I said yes.

We had been on an art class holiday hiatus when I got the dday call from Camilla on January 11. As much as I adored my time with my niece, post dday I was unable to pretend like things were normal, even for a simple one afternoon per week art class. I did not want to have to pretend, and I did not want to break down in front of Belle.

As I sat there at my desk with the picture of a rainbow that my niece and I had painted together, I remembered how my boys used to have a book that outlined the colors of the rainbow in the acronym ROYGBIV: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Belle and I had painted those exact colors on our rainbow. I sat and reminisced about when my boys were little, and I thought about how much my life had changed since January. Tears began to flow and drop down on the rainbow painting that I was holding. We had used simple watercolor paints and the colors started to bleed down the paper.

Just prior to commencing my mission of cleaning my desk, I had jotted down some possible names for my blog. As I sat there looking at the colorful rainbow draining away before my eyes, I started thinking about the significance of rainbows in different cultures. I started thinking about what rainbows have meant to me. When I decided to title my blog ‘try not to cry on my rainbow,’ I felt an immediate urge to make my first blog post an explanation of what I meant by my title. I did not want my readers to think I was searching for some euphemistic “everything is going to magically be better with butterflies and rainbows and unicorns appearing everywhere” scenario. I am not that kind of girl. After many months of pain and trauma, I do believe something beautiful can grow out of a dark storm. Something strong and powerful and magical can enter our lives, if we embrace it.

Since discovery day, I feel like I am trying to reach a higher state of consciousness for myself and rainbows signify the highest state in Hindu and Buddhist meditation practices. In Chinese culture, rainbows signify a bridge between the sky and earth, between dreams and reality. To me, rainbows represent enlightenment, life, hope, divinity, promise, creation, potential, and harmony.

I have felt like I need to believe in a greater good, believe in harmony of the spirit, believe in the power of love and promise and enlightenment and life. I want the stronger more powerful side of my spirit to win out over the weaker side. I do not want my pain to forever overshadow my hopes and dreams. I want to get to the day when my tears stop drowning out the power, and light, and beauty of life.