Rain

Why does the rain make me so nervous today? 

I asked myself as I felt the cold breeze meet my half-covered arms from the window behind me. I still could hear the low rumble of thunder with my earphones on and the music playing at a moderate level of volume. 

As I leaned into the wooden dining chair, I faintly heard the thunder louder and more lasting. With each thunder one after another, the volume and length were increasing as if in a crescendo. It was almost identical to the rising quake of anxiety in my chest. 

It felt so heavy. Even heavier as one of my most avoided songs played. Avoided because it made my heartache and feel the emotions I was trying to run from. 

This heaviness. This must be how the clouds feel during monsoon season. So full and on the brink of exploding. So so heavy. 

The sky roared in pain. I flinched. The song reached the bridge. 

The rain made me melancholic but it never suddenly made me feel overwhelmed. But then I was already feeling the anxiety creep in like a little pest since earlier in the evening. 

I guess the rain was just coming to do its unsaid job. After all, only the broken recognize the broken as only the lonely would want to accompany another lone.

But even lonely had its puzzling definition. It was that loneliness that you feel because you feel completely deserted with your thoughts regardless of having an abundance of presence. It was that loneliness of knowing that you aren’t alone yet you know there is nothing anyone can do to help you. 

Or it’s the loneliness of being completely secluded, isolated, without anyone. 

That’s the worst. 

So the rain was to hug the lonely in its arms, while it caressed their skin with its tears and wailed. Assuring them that it was time to let go of everything.

As if asking to let themselves feel the amalgam of emotions, letting the poison of thoughts seep into the walls of their mind, letting the suppressed screams and cries echo in the empty soul but only for a second before the rain would siphon it all and unleash its beauty, yet a beast, upon the world.

And then they’d cry together. The lonely wouldn’t be lonely in that moment and neither the rain.

I always found it amusing that such a phenomenon, so large and epic, held a deeper meaning. That I would feel the rain for more than its grand presence and widespreadness. 

I slowly turned around, struggling to see through the glass window as light from the tube light reflected on it, as I heard the wind slap the windows loudly. 

I inhaled deeply as I removed my earphones, the scent of rain, petrichor, filling my senses. I loved the smell. So fresh and lovely. 

The sky roared one last time as thunder drummed the ground with a loud resonance, followed by a flash of lightning, lighting up the purplish sky alight like a bulb in a dark room. 

My heart clenched. 

The hammering of the raindrops on the ground hit my eardrums. So much frustration. So much confusion. Why? Why must we feel this way? Why can’t we be numb and happy like a clear blue sky?

But even the sky turns dull and somber as it tries to stay veracious to its emotions and feelings. For as long as we are alive, we shall bathe in pain and shower in joy in cycles of ups and downs. 

May our hearts and eyes align with our emotions and cry with the rain when we’re filled and overwhelmed but correspondingly I hope that we can smile as warm and bright as the sun when our hearts bloom with love and security.