I heard the resounding clang of the door of my life shut behind me. It was all gone. Everything that was known, familiar, loved – all gone in an instant. If I was honest with myself in retrospect, the door had probably been closing for months, maybe years, but that last loud clang resonated with the finality of it. Husband, career, home, family, friends – all gone.
For three years, I groped around in a bewildering darkness, blundering among suffocating anxiety, suicidal depressions and sometimes, it seemed, outright insanity.
Then, slowly – over a day, or maybe it was months – a light started to creep into my darkness. It was the outline of a door. As the light outlining it gradually increased, I saw that the door was a particularly soothing shade of pastel blue. I approached it, hesitant and afraid. It had no handle. For a long time, I stood still, with the palm of my hand pressed against its surface. That surface was pleasantly, soothingly warm. Finally, in a burst of reckless daring, I pushed at the door. It gave way under the pressure of my hand. I pushed some more, first slowly, then ever harder, until I flung it open.
Beyond it was a bright golden light. It blinded me, so that I could not see the landscape on which it shone, but something about it was inviting and reassuring. At my feet lay a green path of soft, welcoming grass. It called to me. A few steps only, inviting me further into the light. Not much to go on, as a start, but it beckoned me towards a new beginning.