It started raining today.
I’ve been looking at it from the living room. The windows were shut with the door left ajar, the floor underneath a little soaking wet. The noise from the show my sister was watching drowned in my ears. The raindrops slid down like tears on the window pane — they looked like cracked hearts in my eyes. For some reason, although the only thing I could feel was the cold wind that sought to ease my trembling emotions scattered all over, I could still sense the stinging liquid that wanted to be heard even though I tried to plug in my earphones.
No matter how high I purposely put the song in to distract myself, the rain seemed to have danced with the rhythm. A little too aggressively. Knowingly.
While everyone was busy with their own little things today, my mom on the phone and my sister on her fourth episode this afternoon, I was there on the couch — vision lining up with the traces the rain has left, deeply wondering what I should do to keep myself busy.
To keep myself from breaking apart so easily like the raindrops that knocked on the windows.
I got up, discarded my blanket to the side, and stared past the door which was now wide open. The rain poured heavier; the raindrops bigger than my anxious heart. My pet dog was observing me, she’s always been the curious type. Always waiting for our doors to open so she could come in. Today, however, I was the one to have had a door open for me.
I picked up my dog and told her in a voice that slips off of me so rarely, “Play in the rain with me.”
The rain was so loud from the inside of my house, but once I was outside, bare in both my feet and my hair tie loosely holding my hair together, the rain was the calmest thing in my life. I couldn’t even hear it, but I could feel it — so terribly well that I shivered in slight contact. My pet dog stayed seated in the corner of my favorite plant pot, and she observed me again.
A drop of heaven slid down my face, and I like to believe the rain wanted me to cry out the tears I’ve been holding back. I like to believe that was the rain palming me ever so gently unlike anyone else in my life.
The wind was strong enough to brush my hair back, but light enough to keep every little strand floating in mid-air. Like I’m underwater. Except I’m in the place where I thought nothing this peaceful could ever occur to me. I could sense the raindrops on my skin, flowing down like the rivers I used to visit when I was a child. It was cold. In moments like this, I quietly wish to have the rain live in me — to trickle down my body, stop at the perfect spot, dry up, and become a part of me. In that way, maybe I’ll become a part of something lovely. In that way, maybe I’ll become a mosaic of what I love the most.
The rain looks so gloomy when you’re not under it, however, the moment you walk to it, everything looks clearer — as if you’re inside a raindrop. There are little rainbows smiling at you. Maybe this is what life was supposed to look like. Like you’re the rain: carefree and unafraid to wail loudly. Even if you’d be heard by everyone. Because you know, someone out there would willingly stand before you and feel the guilt-ridden weights you want to let go of. And that person will forgive you — that person will understand.
I looked down and saw the puddles sketching the shape of my feet that were nowhere near quivering. How could something so non-living fit me better than everything else I’ve tried to please?
What would happen if I just disappeared in this rainstorm?
I saw my pet dog still waiting for me to pick her up and bring her inside. My gaze naturally drifted to the windows and I saw my mom walking out of her room. Still on her phone, she watched me. She watched me the same way I was watching the rain a while ago. Confused but she didn’t get mad and told me to go inside like I expected she would. She just continued to walk away.
The rain has always allowed me to slow down.
I have no idea how long I stood there, unmoving and my eyes looking far ahead — at the trees that were swaying, at the electric posts. My heart was heavy, but it felt non-existent in the rain. As if it melted away.
You don’t always have to carry an umbrella and run away from the rain because you’re scared of getting sick. You also don’t have to always dance in the rain to make yourself feel better. Sometimes, just standing there, taking deep breaths, and allowing yourself to stop and slow down is enough. You do not have to rush things. Let it go, and let it happen. Let the rain connect the earth and the sky; let the rain connect with your aching.
When it rains, let it rain.
I will tell you what the rain told me today, so take it with hope in your heart:
You are allowed to slow down.
