This morning I woke up and felt a deep sadness in my bones. I had gotten some news earlier that had broken my heart and I wasn’t coping with it very well. Slugging my way out of bed at 1 in the afternoon, I begrudgingly made myself some cereal and a coffee and got to work on completing my assignment I had due in summer school but then the skies opened up. Almost violently rain began flooding the streets, hitting the windows with such force it nearly shook the house. I’ve always loved storms, ever since I was a child, me and my dad would grab some blankets, cuddle up on the front porch swing and watch the downpour together marveling at the sheer power nature held. As I was finishing my cereal, that memory of my dad and I popped up and I said “Screw it” I grabbed my hot coffee and shuffled my way to the front. As soon as I opened the door I could feel the power this storm held. The rain was hitting the ground and the sides of the house so hard it created a chilling mist that was hitting me, but I didn’t care. I sat down and watched it come down, slowly sipping my now cooling coffee, and as thunder hit I felt the biggest need to run into the rain. I got up, then stopped myself, a big part of my mental illnesses is impulsivity. I do without thinking and get myself into trouble so after the thought came, I sat back down, gave myself a minute to think it through (Using those skills) and then after a few minutes I thought “fuck it!!!” And I ran out into the rain.
There were so many thoughts going through my head, is this crazy? Someone could see me. What would my family think? What if I looked ridiculous? And believe it or not even some eating disorder thoughts snuck its way to the forefront of my brain. “You’re too big to do this” “you’re not pretty enough to enjoy this”
I pushed all the thoughts to the back of my head and turned my face up to the sky letting the rain wash away all my doubts. It was coming down hard, within a minute I was drenched all the way down to my underwear and I was absolutely LOVING IT.
It felt so freeing, I danced and I kicked up the flooding water and I laughed out loud to myself. I still felt worried about what others could have been thinking, I just didn’t care enough anymore to let it stop me from living.
Shivering I made my way back on to my porch, I took a video of myself laughing and dripping with water to remember how free I felt then made my way back inside, dragging the storm in behind me.
Now, after a warm shower and some comfy clothes I sit here and can’t help but to think that maybe the universe knew exactly what I needed. It knew my heart was heavy and it knew how to lighten it. It’s not raining anymore, we don’t get many storms here as powerful as that and when we do they rarely last long, that storm was healing for me on so many levels and as fast as it had come and washed away my suffering, it was gone again.
The pain is still here, what happened still hurts and that’s okay. I’ll allow it to hurt, I won’t hide from this grief, because the storm taught me that even though it hurts I’ll survive it because I am as powerful as a storm.