A Box Full of Darkness

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

—Mary Oliver

We don’t often recognize gifts when they come wrapped in pain.

Sometimes, what we receive from others—especially those we once trusted or loved—isn’t kindness, but cruelty. Not tenderness, but absence. Not safety, but betrayal.

And in the moment, all we feel is the weight of it. The sting. The confusion. The loss.

We don’t know how to carry the box, let alone open it.

We just know it hurts.

The Nature of the “Gift”

Mary Oliver’s words don’t ask us to romanticize trauma or bypass grief. They don’t suggest that pain is good or that we should be grateful for it in the moment. Instead, they invite us to consider that healing often comes in retrospect.

That the growth we gain—the self-knowledge, the clarity, the boundaries, the strength—emerges slowly, over time, in the quiet aftermath.

The “gift” was never the harm itself.

It was who we became because of what we survived.

Unwrapping Darkness

For many, this takes years.

We hold the box in the corner of our lives, unopened. Or we try to bury it.

We say:

• Why did this happen to me?

• How could someone do that and still call it love?

• Will I ever feel whole again?

These questions don’t have simple answers. But the asking of them—over time, in safety, in trusted spaces—is part of how we reclaim ourselves.

The Work of Integration

Here, at Pauserooms, I honor the complexity of healing.

I don’t rush to find silver linings or silver bullets.

I make space for the darkness—because it, too, is part of the story.

And one day, maybe not today, the box may no longer feel like a curse, but a turning point.

Not because what happened was okay—but because you are okay now.

Because you chose to survive. To feel. To grow.

And in that, there is quiet, radical power.

Pause. Breathe. Begin again.

You don’t have to make sense of it all at once.

Just take the next gentle step.