Rain

There's a refreshment to the spirit that can come when you have eight thousand days of sun, and then the rain begins to pour. It's amazing how much you can take it for granted. The smell... The sound of gentleness in the air. It's amazing how the brown looks less brownly when there's rain all around.

My thoughts drift off to a thousand days of insanity in greener pastures. I am reminded of what life was like so many years ago. No kids. No husband. Just me. Me and my goals, against the world. It was all so much more complicated back then. Isn't that strange? Back when I had only myself to worry about, life was more complicated than it is now.

To have a family was not what I envisioned for myself. To have a husband and eight zillion kids was not what I believed I wanted. One day it all sort of happened. I resisted, and ran, and fought, and one day I had the balls to give in. That day it was more humid than I could ever remember. I was terrified, and all of this anxiety about a promise was welling up in me. A promise I knew I would keep. I would have to.

Down an aisle I went. Chief cried. I remember looking at him thinking I'm supposed to be crying. Why am I not crying? Force one out! Force out a damn tear! (plop) What's wrong with me???? Oh crap! My turn to talk! (vows) Promise done. 

I remember going out to the landing before we got in the car and thinking it was so surreal. I just gave away my entire life, and I felt "normal". I remember feeling like I had to put on some show for everyone else around me. Like everything had to be done their way, their standards, for their picture of what "a wedding" looked like. It wasn't funny, or beautiful. It was not a reflection of either of us in any capacity. It was just motions. I hated it. But then the moment came where it was just the two of us. And boom! The tears. The power. The might of that experience. I looked out the window and he grabbed my hand. He said "Hello Mrs. Jones!"

It rained on our way home. We had a tornado that night. Funny how storms make me think of that day. The day I married the greatest person I have ever known, in the most ridiculous of ways. It took seven years, a change of religions, and an iPhone Priest to rewrite that picture of a wedding ceremony. On that second day, it was overcast, but it didn't rain. Inside of the church, it was filled with warmth, and silliness, and the most sincerest of passion. And I cried. Not because I felt like I needed to, but because I couldn't not. Because it wasn't about what anyone else wanted. It was just this crazy, dramatic, fiercely fragile girl making her promise all over again to this boy that changed her world. As our four children looked on, I couldn't help but ignore the beauty of him. He has given me so much. And almost all of it I never knew I wanted.

But for the here and now, the rain has come and the brown looks less brownly, and the green looks more greenly. Life is less complicated now, than it was so many years ago. I am blessed.