Outrunning the Rain...

I turned the key in the lock and we started down the stairs with the last bags of trash to take out. It had been thundering loudly while we loaded the last of my stuff in the car, and I was just hoping the rain would hold off until I was ready to go. I kept telling him that the coming storm was a sign; that maybe I shouldn't go. We walked to the dumpsters and threw the trash in, and right as we turned to walk out, we could hear the rain coming on the aluminum roof of my apartment complex. It was so close we could feel it. He took off running and so I followed suit and sprinted after him. We split when we got to his car yelling our goodbyes and me yelling a thank you and and I love you along with it. As I ran for my car across the parking lot, it was right as I jumped in and slammed the door that the rain hit. Huge, soaking drops falling hard and fast from the dark sky overhead. I sat for a moment and tried to take deep breaths, and then turned the car on and put it in reverse. As I headed for the entrance to the complex, watching the trees blow sideways in the sudden storm, my tears started to fall just as hard and as fast. It had been so long since it had rained, and this storm was a symbol of so much for me. It was so ironic, and so perfect.

I began my drive through Murfreesboro, not able to go more than fifteen miles an hour because the rain was falling so hard so fast. The water was collecting quickly on the roads, and visibility was next to nothing. I could hardly see from the tears falling from my eyes anyways. I was leaving my life. I was leaving the town I had lived in for twenty-one years, with no promises of return. I was leaving the apartment I had lived in during the hardest, most difficult (and yet beautiful) year of my life. So much had been learned here. My friends were right down the street here. And oh, had the rain fallen here. The storms I had weathered in this apartment were the some of the worst ones I had ever seen. So much pain and grief, and it was so hard to escape it. The winds had knocked me down more than once, and sunny skies seemed so far off. I had stopped sleeping well in this apartment months ago. The rain was perfect, because the rain was mostly what my heart saw when I lived at this address. I was ready for the rains to end. So I drove on.

Just as I was about to hit the interstate and head a county to the north, it suddenly stopped raining. The winds became calm, and peace was whispered into my soul. It was time to move on. It was time for a new life. A better life. It was time to take all I had learned and all the relationships I had built, and leave the rest behind. Though I know the rains will fall again no matter where I live, I had weathered these particular storms and come out on the other side a better, stronger person. I could move on now.

This first week in my new house has been hard. It's been lonely, and it's been new. There aren't friends to call that live right down the street, and there is no familiarity in anything. My comfort is found in the familiar, so this is stretching me in new ways. I'm learning to explore the unknown, because I don't really have any other choice. I'm learning to bask in the peace of living outside of the center of town. I'm learning to appreciate my five minute drive to work, living in an actual (HUGE) house, and living with people I have the pleasure of getting to know (even though I haven't seen any of them in three days). I don't yet regret my decision to grow up, and I hope that I never do. Yes it's new, and so yes it's hard. But I'll adjust. The best part is that even though it hasn't been easy, the sun has still been shining. I sleep all night, and my heart isn't heavy anymore. The storms that my apartment had held had attacked my spirit and burdened my soul. There is peace here; peace and sunlight. The rain has stopped, and it is well with my soul. For now at least :)