11.20.24 // I Stopped Hating the Rain

I stopped hating the rain today.
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As I ran through the torrential downpour, my usual instinct to resent the water cascading from the sky, coating my skin and clothes, dripped from my mind.
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When the rain unexpectedly catches me while running, I usually make a case against it: "The weather report didn't call for this!" "Why can't it wait until I'm done?" (as if my wants had any impact on the weather), or "$%*#" some form of a four-letter expletive.
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How incredibly short-sighted and one-minded. My perspective was closed off as I fought to breathe and move my body forward, inconvenienced by the beauty of Mother Nature watering her sweet, loamy soils.
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For the first time, I related to the rain in a way that felt nourishing, celebrated, powerful, uncontrollable, and free. I moved through the world like the rain falling from the sky, feeling untethered, unpredictable, and wild. I don't have to love the rain, but I don't have to hate her, and if anything, becoming more like her feels like the antidote to so much rigid routine, expected outcomes, and external pressures.
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The rain doesn't stop because I don't want it to rain. The rain shows up regardless of the radar and the predictions because she damn well wants to. She is audacious, my 2024 word of the year. She is bold, my 2022 word of the year. She challenges me because those are words I try to embody but often feel just out of grasp, just out of character, just out of my comfort state.
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No wonder I've always hated the rain. Rain is the friction to the illusion of control and comfort. I may not be a full convert to the dark, wet days, but I can understand them more than I ever have before.