And Then It Rained

I couldn’t ask for more than I’ve been given the past couple of days. For starters, it’s raining and my heart is rejoicing in this fact alone.

The precipitation of the season still lingers but I’m happy to see the temperatures ever so slowly increasing to the point where the would be snow is rain. It’s easier to get a sense of spring being around the corner when the precipitation mimics it. Where there is rain, there are flowers. Where there are flowers, there is sun. Where there is sun, there is life.

However, rain is the ending to my happy story and the beginning lay in a concerned email from a dear friend. Last Friday, I found a spare moment covered in dust and hidden in the corner of my work life. I brushed it off and relished it in the form of checking email.

I always enjoy getting mail from this friend. She is a most delightful girl and if that alone did not capture my attention, her shared anxiety in any aspect of my life much less the parts I find most uneasy, have always been and are incredibly touching to me. For this, I award her stars. Many gold stars.

When she queried about the nature of my past few blogs, I was immediately forced to ponder the true characteristics of my recent situation. Perhaps the most genius insight she offered was that of perspective. She drew my attention from the obvious past and the not so obviously present and suggested I look to a more scary, more exciting place. My future.

When you are drowning, the most dire struggle is for air. Yet at some point, between the gulps of breath, though the most dire struggle is still for air, at some point a plan must be formulated to get to land.

Most of my wrestle with life has been in determining how I can best take my strongest talents and skills and put them to use for the greater good of mankind. When I finally confessed to some of my desires and dreams, I was met with something I did not expect. Encouragement.

Though I blame no one close to me for that lack of encouragement in my life, conceivably the person most acutely aware of my inner wishes was the very least encouraging. That person being myself.

Then there was a click.

Maybe she’ll think I’m writing this for her. When in actuality I’m writing this because of her. All weekend long, I’ve been deliberating upon a suggestion made in a return email. With each thought, my excitement increased and my happiness swelled. Though the outlet is not quite the perfect fit, the concept truly is and I’m enlivened to imagine a future with options. The largest option being happiness.

The weekend granted a much needed reprieve from work. I savored the new thrill of a secret fresh impression of what could be. My friends were promptly able to add to my proverbial bucket because I seemed to have discovered my personal leak and was able to mend it for now.

And then there was rain. The reviving drops of the firmament which wash the old away and promise a lively prospect.