Excellence of Rain

The bus is late again, surprise surprise right. The only thing you can rely on with NYC public transportation is how consistently unreliable it seems to be. It’s only a mile and a half walk home and the weather isn’t disgustingly terrible for a December night in the city. These are the thoughts that occupy my time as I step over a puddle and feel my clothes become increasingly wet with each stride. As I look up to contemplate the rain and God’s creation, a droplet hits me in the eye and I can’t help but smile. It is hard to believe how eerily similar and dynamic the changes of natures seasons are to the changes of seasons in one’s personal life. The rain does something to you if you let it. After a ten hour shift, and ten minutes into a thirty minute walk and as the severity of the rain picks up by the minute, my suit pants almost indistinguishable from a wetsuit and my hair heavy from the down pour, there’s nothing but joy to be felt as I let the rain remind me of all my other rainy days. 

To think seven years ago I moved to the Pacific Northwest where they are notoriously known for their rainy days, and I absolutely hated it. As a kid who’s ever only known Brooklyn NY I couldn’t comprehend how a place can be consistently raining and grey for MONTHS at a time. It rained so much without stopping that the fallen autumn leaves turned to mush and would cover the sidewalks for months. It did not feel real. Now I’d love nothing more than to be back there and experience the power of that rain. The rain has a quality of personifying perseverance and commitment, It has a way of making a very real world feel just a slight more dystopian. The rain has a quality of showing you the beautiful in the ugly and giving one a sense of renewal. The smell of a wet world awakens this animal instinct in me, which brings me closer to both nature and God. The realization that some of my best memories have come from me embracing the rain when others haven’t, encourages me to further brace uncomfortable situations. 

Its May of 2024 in Dallas Texas and the weather is just out right disgusting. It’s pouring so bad that the highways are flooding, it looks as if its 10 pm when the clock says 2 pm. Its a thunderstorm and not a soul is to be seen walking outside. Notifications for the weather is being sent to phones, the whole nine yards. The whole shebang. Anyone in their right mind would leave work and go straight home, especially if you live right across the street from your work place which I had the luxury of doing. But fortunately (or unfortunate depending on who you’re asking) I’m not often times in my "right mind" and after running consistently for over a month, something in me decides that I want to run in this weather. I want to be able to say I did it when no one else would. I mention to my coworkers my plan and they all doubt me which did nothing but fuel my motivation even more. I excitedly rush home to put on some running shorts, socks and shoes. Nothing more, nothing less. No shirt, no hat, no phone, no music. NO MUSIC! My avatar consisted of nothing but blue Nike running shorts, black Nike socks and black Nike running shoes. Just the essentials and I hit the door running. I walk slowly through the rain on my way to the Katy trail with an ear to ear smile on my face seeing drivers pass me and stare with a look of confusion. The trail is an absolute wreck, my socks are already soaked and I fell in mud and scratch my arm on concrete… all before I even started running. In the first mile I cross paths with one other person who had the same idea as me, no shirt, no music, just shorts and grit. We gave each other a head nod as a sign of respect when we passed on the trail. 45 minutes later and halfway through my run I didn’t see any other soul aside from the fellow I saw at the start. As I’m running back we cross paths again but this time we greet each other with huge smiles and high fives, all the while never stopping. In this moment 1000 words were exchanged without one being spoken and it felt as if I existed in a Rocky or Creed movie. Till this day that is the best run I have ever had and probably ever will and a high that I think cannot be replicated. An experience not possible without the rain and the severity of it we experienced that day. The rain has helped me realize that when you do what most people wouldn’t, you allow your life to become better than any movie or book you can ever read. Great opportunities are often times clouded by undesirable circumstances.

Let’s revisit last summer, August 2024. On a random day at the beach on a random seemingly insignificant island with a friend of my sister. It began to rain out of nowhere and the skies became instantly dark grey and seemed as if a storm was heading our way. Almost everyone left the ocean, which was probably the smart thing to do. All but two, left behind were me and this woman and a moment in time that would prove to be foreshadowing of future events. Probably too overconfident at the time, I told her we would be ok and to embrace the rain and clouds with me, and she trusted me and it will go down as one of the most beautiful things I’ve gotten to experience. The tide aggressively pushing and pulling us, the skyline nothing but a grey canvas and the rain so heavy among us its almost blinding, but yet we had each other. We held hands and never let go and loved our way through the weather, and like all storms, it passed. The view and scene that followed is something they write books about. The sun crept from behind the grey as if it were playing hide and seek and the rain stopped almost instantly as if it were a test of our resolve. Five minutes past and you could not guess that it rained the way it did. The sky a hue of magnificent and vibrant colors and the birds chirping and the water calm and there still, remained the woman and I. Just us two as if the world belonged to us, as if God specifically created this moment JUST for us. When everyone else sought shelter from the rain we embraced and weathered the storm and experienced a moment in time that brings me to tears at the thought of it. 

Remember when I mentioned the change in natures seasons being eerily similar to that of man’s? An observation I’ve come to realize is peoples reaction to that change of weather is also similar. The same way people seek shelter and try to avoid the rain, happens in the same capacity when they see someones inner world begin to storm and rain. It happened to me, I went from feeling on top of the world, being paid as a professional gamer, having ample free time to explore my world and experience freedom, to losing my father and two sisters, being fired over an eight minute zoom call and having to move states on short notice, all within a month. My world flipped upside down. My world began to storm tremendously and I had no vision of when it would end. The rain came and people and friends disappeared. You didn’t though, you stayed the course with me. Even though stressful at times and I understand you tried your best to trust things. You showed up for me in ways no one ever has and you continue to love me like I never have before. 

I struggle to understand why the rain gets such bad reputation. The rainy days wash away people and things not meant to last and cleanses one soul. The rainy days tests the strength of foundations, a beautiful thing. The rainy days are inevitable and I embrace them with a smile on my face because God has allowed me to see the sun at the end of all of them. This is less of a short story and more of an expression of my love for you. I’d like to think you’d probably never read this but I love you until the end of my life Indyah Conte. Always and forever and let these words be a testimony of that. As I finish writing this, the morning grey fades and the sun shines and the birds sing their beautiful melody, I know that God hears me.