THE MUSINGS OF A WRITING MIND

| cinco / rain |

There's something society finds interesting, even romantic, about rain. Small drops of water falling from the clouds remind people of the gods' tears, small signs of vulnerability from the otherwise powerful idols above. Maybe it makes us all feel more human and less alone. Or maybe it's just enjoying the feeling of cold relief on your skin, the sound of the rain coming down onto your window beside you. Maybe it's the concept of pathetic fallacy - relating ideas of sadness to the rain, the weather that makes you feel less alone when you feel hopeless. Or maybe, just maybe, you just like the rain, and there's no extensive reason.

The rain means something to me as it does to everyone - to me, the rain is my signal to start afresh. The first time I thought this was a year after my father had died; the rain was lashing down on me, and often when it had rained, I felt angry; he had always hated the rain, and so I thought that if I did too, I'd find a part of him within myself. But that day, I felt clean. I felt, in a certain way, as though this was my sign to become something new. To remember that nothing lasts forever, to figure out that the rain had washed away my previous attitudes and the rainbow that shone afterwards was trying to refresh my spirit, my hopes. It was the first time I'd felt positively since his passing, and it was monumental in such a simple, small way. 

The irony was unbearable.

Since that day, the rain has been a sign for me. An idea of a fresh start, each time it comes down. A cleanse. I'm aware that isn't how it is for everyone, though.

A friend told me that to her, the rain is a symbol of her sadness. When the rain starts to come down, she has a tradition - she puts on her headphones, sits by her window, plays her favourite sad songs and she waits, watching as the drizzle comes down. I found the idea of it odd, because she, for as long as I have known her, is not the most open with emotion. Yet she told me, as we listened to a song that I didn't know, that vulnerability is delicate. Beautiful. She declared the importance of expression, of feeling, of allowing tears to fall while you watch the upset of the skies drip down around you. She told me her ideas on the knowledge that not even nature is free from melancholy, and her belief that the purpose of rain is to remind humans that to be human is no weakness, that pain is nothing to fear but rather to acknowledge and learn from. She taught me a lesson that day, as I watched her, astounded by the sheer magnificence of her in all of her raw emotion, and baffled by the notion that happiness managed to exude from her sadness - as though her acceptance of her upset made her happier in herself, too.

Because sadness is nothing to fear and nothing to be hidden. To feel, and to feel unapologetically, is the healthiest thing we can do - and now the rain reminds me of this, too. So if you see the rain as a reminder you're not alone, that you can be at peace, that you can start again or merely as the beauty of nature - just know that you are as valid to feel that as anyone else would be.

5; seek emotion in the rain. It is more than just water from the sky, as you are more than just a fleck of matter on the Earth. Acknowledge that you are as important as anything else and that you are allowed to be upset, and you're one step closer to happiness. 

The emotions are not as different as you may think.