I just did.
And as I write this, I realize I should’ve been doing it my whole life.
It was early. One of those quiet spring mornings where the world still feels half asleep. The sun hadn’t fully decided if it was getting up yet. I had gone for a walk to wake myself up… the kind where you tell yourself you’re being healthy but really you’re just trying to outrun your thoughts before breakfast.
And almost the exact second I stepped back into the driveway…
Rain.
Not dramatic rain seen in old movies.
Just steady rain.
Soft at first. Then harder. Then soft again.
Like the sky couldn’t decide whether it needed to cry or simply exhale.
I should’ve gone inside.
That’s what adults do.
We run from rain like we’re made of printer paper and unpaid bills.
But for some reason… I didn’t.
I pulled an old chair into the backyard and sat down in the middle of it.
At six in the morning. Fully clothed. Like a man who had finally lost the last tiny argument with himself.
And almost immediately…
I felt better.
The rain soaked through my sweatshirt, flattened my hair, filled my shoes, and somehow none of it bothered me.
Birds flew from tree to tree like tiny commuters late for work. The grass darkened. The sky turned silver. Water gathered on the patio and carried little rivers of dirt and pollen away into the yard.
And I just sat there.
For a few minutes, I thought.
Then I looked at the clock.
Half an hour had passed.
Half an hour of doing absolutely nothing except existing.
No phone.
No noise.
No pretending.
Just rainwater running down my face and a strange feeling I couldn’t quite name.
Peace maybe...or presence. Or maybe the realization that this world has been trying to love us for years and we’ve all been too distracted to notice.
Because somewhere along the way we stopped letting ourselves experience life fully.
We don’t walk in rain anymore. We dodge it.
Protect the hair.
Save the shoes.
Preserve the outfit.
God forbid another human being sees us uncomfortable.
So we spend our lives managing appearances while our souls quietly dehydrate.
But this morning…
Sitting there soaked on an old worn-out chair…
I felt something inside me loosen.
Fear. Pressure. Regret maybe? The exhausting weight of trying to hold everything together.
It felt like the rain reached into all the little pockets where I’d been storing grief… and washed them empty one by one.
And for the first time in a very long time…
I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Not richer or fixed. Not even understood.
Just there.
A man sitting in the rain.
Alive.
Maybe that’s the real tragedy of adulthood.
Not aging or heartbreak.
But how rarely we allow ourselves to be touched by the world anymore.
As kids, we jumped into puddles without hesitation.
Now we spend our lives trying not to wrinkle.
But the rain doesn’t care who you used to be.
It falls anyway.
On the grieving, the lonely, the people carrying things too heavy to say out loud.
And this morning it fell on me.
And somewhere between the dripping trees, the soaked clothes, and the birds crossing the gray morning sky…
My soul remembered something my mind had forgotten.
You do not heal by avoiding the storm.
Sometimes…
you heal by sitting in it long enough to remember you were never meant to stay dry forever.
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