When it rains it pours

I can still remember the smell of Fridays when I was younger...like drafts of fresh cut grass blowing in through the school bus windows on the bumpy ride home, the scuffle of dirty shoes skipping rope on cold concrete, the feel of mud caked under my fingernails and the thud of my backpack as I flung it to the floor to be forgotten for the next 48 hours.

I miss the days when the weekend was the light at the end of a seven week long battle against the rest of the world. These days, it's nothing but an extension of an already overwhelming work week. Sometimes I thrive more when work is plentiful and the familiar pangs of anxiety propel me out of bed each morning. But there are days when I lie in bed, letting time tick by while I think about what would happen if I did not get up, if I let the world get on without me for just a few more minutes. I usually get up anyway, probably out of fear of getting an answer. But today I didn't. I called in sick to work. I never do that. I slept until 1:30 (p.m.). I never do that either. I could hear storm clouds rolling in outside my window, billowing overhead and carrying sleepy, halfhearted sun rays in through the blinds and I welcomed the excuse to snooze longer.


In the past months I have been hit by more bricks and stones and walls than I can count, all warning of danger ahead if I continued on the path I was on. Finally, about a week ago I decided to listen. The invisible voices I imagined were pushing me forward disappeared. I learned to listen to myself for once and do what I wanted. It seems simple but I actually had not realized that my life is my own to live. No one is telling me what to do or how to do it. I had control all along even though I envisioned myself a slave to some higher power.

I snapped and I'm not going back to where I was. It gets tempting, I admit, to let the current convince me with its gentle ebbs and flows to go along with it down a distant pathway. Sucking up my courage and turning the other direction is the hard part, but it gets easier with each day as my muscles clench and tighten, growing stronger and propelling me against the current.

I'm getting back to balance, to the journey I started two years ago. Maybe the direction I'm going is different than everyone else. Maybe I won't have the picture perfect transcript or the job everyone wishes they had. But I will be happy, and that's true success in my book.


"When it rains it pours but when you shine it dries."