The Night a String of Pastel Lights Made Me Cry

Tonight, something as small as a string of pastel lights unraveled me in the most unexpected, but equally beautiful way.

I wasn’t “working on my healing”.

I wasn’t looking for symbolism or deeper meaning. I wasn’t reflecting on anything, I had been decorating for the holidays all day. Until the package with the new lights came.

I was simply sitting in my cozy corner, in front of me a mess of Dollar Tree bags, ornaments, scrapbooking supplies … well, you get the point. The room was quite chaotic and all over the place. I was finishing up the decorations for the day, but wanted to open the new lights to see what they looked like.

Nothing about it felt very significant at all. I just plugged them in to see how they looked and test the colors and modes.

It was just a quiet, ordinary evening with myself and my craft supplies and mess of decorations.

And then the lights came on.

Soft pink, hazy blue, soft,warm gold, lavender…

colors so gentle and even magical they almost didn’t feel real.

In the instant the lights were in my lap and turned on, shining on my blankets, my walls, my hands… something inside my chest shifted – big time.

It wasnt just a soft or subtle shift. It was a shift that came with force – like a dam breaking open

And suddenly, I started crying. Not quiet or soft tears. Not the kind that leave a single teardrop. I was full out BAWLING.

No — the kind that take your whole body with them. These were the kind of tears that flow like huge waves through your whole body with, make your breath shake, your ribs ache. They were the kind of tears that felt like a lifetime (or more) of emotion just rushed up all at once. And it didn’t want to wait another second.

I didn’t get it at first.

I stared at the pastel glow and thought maybe I was overwhelmed by the mess, indecision about where to put the lights after untangling them, the stress of the last few days, or even just the months (and lets face it: YEARS) of emotional weight I’ve been carrying.

But that wasn’t it.

Something much deeper was happening and moving through me… something very tender and raw, old, and buried.

My inner child.

The child who grew up in war and didn’t know if she’d ever feel peace. The child who had to hide in basements and bomb shelters while her whole world around her crumbled.

The child who always looked for even a tiny crack of light, and held onto it as hope. Real beauty was scarce, often not found at all in a war zone for 4 years. Softness and gentleness was something she could only dream of and imagine, but never touch.

The moment the lights turned on – I felt her, right there.

And through my eyes, she saw it:

The warm glow of the lights.

The soft colors.

The gentle atmosphere.

A room filled with safety and magic instead of fear and danger.

And she started sobbing, and me along with her.

Because in those pastel colors, she recognized something she had always longed for in the dark but didn’t think would ever experience.

This is what I dreamed of.

This is what I hoped for.

This is what I thought I’d never live to see.

The glow wasn’t overwhelming, to her it was not only amazing and beautiful… it was also proof.

Proof that we made it out.

Proof that softness still exists.

Proof that I can still have and do deserve beauty, even after so much darkness.

Proof that the world isn’t always unsafe.

She saw warmth.

She saw color that didn’t disappear with the sound of bombs.

She saw a room that was hers – not a shelter, not a hiding place. But her room, that she gets to decorate exactly as she wants.

And I felt it… deep within my heart and soul, she finally believed… after years of inner healing work, for what might be the first time, that we are no longer where we were. We’re not in the darkness, hiding from bombs and dodging literal bullets.

we are safe. and we are home.

I sobbed for over an hour with her

for everything she had to endure that no child ever should, for everything she never had, and for everything she buried and silently carried on her own for decades.

My chest felt too full for my ribs.

My hands shook.

My face burned with tears that didn’t stop,

and my husband listened to me through it all,

supportive and holding space in the only way he knows how.

And somewhere between one wave of sobbing and the next, something inside me softened.

I wasn’t crying out of fear.

I wasn’t crying out of sadness.

I was crying because light – the actual, physical light – had reached the part of me that had survived so much darkness it didn’t know how to hold beauty.

I was crying because I finally felt safe enough to feel.

And when the tears finally calmed,

and the pastel colors settled into their soft glow around me,

a warmth spread through my chest and body.

A feeling I haven’t felt in a very long time:

Peace.

The gentle kind.

The fragile kind.

The kind that sits quietly in your ribcage and hums:

The dark is over.

You made it out.

You’re safe.

And you deserve what’s glowing in your hands.

Sometimes healing arrives in the smallest and most unexpected waves. Not through therapy, rituals, or even breakthroughs. Sometimes it comes in the form of pastel string lights strung across a messy, half decorated room on an ordinary Tuesday evening.

Sometimes the body cries because its learning to hold something tender for once after everything it had been through.

And tonight,

under a string of $5 lights,

I learned how to hold some of that light too – along with my inner child, who is finally letting go of things no child should ever have to carry.

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Healing isn’t linear. It’s layered.