Harger: You made it through the dark half of the year, I don’t want you to miss that

This morning at 7:46, the world will be in perfect balance.

The vernal equinox. The first day of spring. Twelve hours of light. Twelve hours of dark. Equal. Exact.

A few months ago, on the darkest day of the year, I made you a promise. I told you the light was coming back. One minute at a time. That the season would turn. That brighter days were ahead.

I’m back to tell you: I told you so.

The turning point: When light meets dark

The scales tipped toward darkness back in June, and they’ve been swinging back since December 21st. Slowly, quietly, while you were busy surviving winter. Today, they balance. And tomorrow the light starts winning again.

George Harrison wrote the handbook on this feeling. A long, cold, lonely winter. The ice slowly melting. Here comes the sun. It’s alright.

It is alright. That’s the whole message. Not perfect. Not fixed. Just alright. And sometimes, alright is everything.

I want you to sit with that image for a second. Perfect balance. Light and dark, holding each other. Because I think that’s actually where most of us live. Not in the darkness. Not quite in the light. Somewhere in the middle, holding both at the same time.

The hard stuff is still there. I know that. The grief doesn’t punch a clock. The worry doesn’t take spring break. Some of you are still carrying exactly what you were carrying in December. Maybe more. And someone telling you the flowers are blooming doesn’t make the weight any lighter.

But here’s what I want you to notice: the light has been gaining on the darkness since December 21st. Every single day. You probably didn’t feel it happening. January was rough. February wasn’t much better. The gray just sat on top of everything. But the light kept coming anyway. A minute. Two minutes. Five. Quietly. Steadily. While you weren’t looking.

What else has been building like that while you weren’t looking?

I mean that seriously. We pay attention to the loud things. The bad news travels fast. The hard moments announce themselves. But the good things tend to build quietly. A child who’s a little more capable than they were in September, and you almost missed it because it happened so gradually. A habit you’ve been building without realizing, it’s become a habit. A corner you turned somewhere last month that you haven’t fully given yourself credit for yet.

We’re not good at looking back. We’re trained to scan forward. For threats, for deadlines, for the next hard thing coming. But every now and then, it’s worth turning around and seeing how far you actually walked. You covered a lot of ground this winter. In the dark. Without a map. And here you are.

The darkness is loud. The light is quiet. But it wins anyway. Every year. Without fail. It just does it slowly enough that you miss it until one evening you walk outside and realize the sun’s still up and, somewhere along the way, winter ended.

A season that changed without asking

That’s where we are today.

You don’t have to feel hopeful right now. I’m not asking you to pretend. The equinox doesn’t care how you feel about it. It just does what it does. The balance comes whether you’re ready for it or not.

But maybe, just maybe, you can hold both things today. The hard and the hopeful. The weight and the light. Not letting one erase the other. Just letting them sit side by side, the way the world does today. Twelve and twelve. Even.

You made it through the dark half of the year. I don’t want you to miss that.

The light’s been winning for three months. Let it.

Here comes the sun. And it’s alright.

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