What If It’s Just Raining?

Lately I feel like I have been reflecting on everything.

Ideas and little snippets keep showing up when I’m dreaming, when I wake up in the middle of the night, or when my brain apparently decides 3 a.m. is the perfect time to start a philosophical discussion.

Last night. Or I guess technically this morning, rain was at the forefront. Not sure if it’s because every fucking animal in this house had to be awake from midnight until 3:30. That was fun.

And for whatever reason, the phrase – can you see through the rain? – was there in my head. Rolling around. Waiting for me to latch on.

I have no idea where it came from. But there it was. Over and over.

And of course my first thought was probably something about patience.

Maybe I’m being reminded to slow down.

Maybe I’m supposed to trust the process.

Maybe there’s some lesson buried in there that I’m supposed to figure out.

And then I thought, but what if I’m trying too hard to see through it?

We do that a lot.

We want to know what everything means while we’re still standing right in the middle of it.

Why is this happening?

Where is this going?

Am I doing the right thing?

When am I going to see progress?

When is this going to feel easier?

Is this ever going to feel fucking easier?

What am I supposed to learn from this?

We want clarity before clarity is actually available.

We just want to know.

Or maybe what we really want is reassurance.

Something that tells us we are doing what we should be doing.

That we’re headed in the right direction. That this thing we are doing is eventually going to work.

That all of this effort isn’t for nothing.

And when we don’t get that reassurance, we start looking harder.

We analyze. We question. We change things.

We look for some kind of sign.

But what if there isn’t one yet?

What if you aren’t supposed to be able to see all the way through it?

And what if every period of uncertainty doesn’t mean something has gone wrong?

What if it’s just raining?

That thought is important.

Because we are really fucking quick to turn temporary conditions into conclusions.

This feels hard, so maybe I can’t do it.

The scale hasn’t moved, so this isn’t working.

I don’t feel motivated, so maybe this isn’t for me.

I’m uncomfortable, so maybe I made the wrong decision.

I don’t know what comes next, so maybe I shouldn’t keep going.

We take the weather and turn it into the forecast for the rest of our lives. We might not want to admit that. But, it’s true for a lot of us.

But rain is just rain.

It changes what you can see right now.

Sure, it can slow you down.

Yes, it can make the road a little harder to navigate.

It might even make you question whether you want to keep driving.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the road.

And maybe that is where the patience piece comes in.

Not patience like sitting around waiting for your life to happen.

Patience like being willing to keep living it without demanding that everything make sense immediately.

We are definitely an impatient bunch.

But maybe patience isn’t waiting for the rain to stop.

Maybe it’s learning that you can be perfectly fucking okay while it’s still raining.

That you don’t have to rush through every uncomfortable part.

You don’t have to make the uncertainty go away.

You don’t have to figure out the lesson while you’re still living it.

You can just be in it.

Patience like not ripping apart the plan because you had a shitty week.

Not deciding nothing is working because progress got quiet.

Not assuming discomfort means stop.

Not demanding proof every five minutes that you are headed somewhere worthwhile.

Because sometimes you can’t see through the rain.

Sometimes your view is absolute shit.

You can’t see very far ahead and you definitely can’t see how the whole thing is going to turn out.

But that doesn’t mean you’re lost.

It doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong direction.

And it doesn’t mean you need to stop and completely change course every time things get blurry. Because they will get blurry.

Maybe you just need to see far enough to make the next decision.

The next meal. That next workout. The next conversation. The next boundary.

The next uncomfortable thing you know you need to do.

Maybe that’s enough.

We spend so much time trying to figure out the entire road before we are willing to take another step.

And I’m starting to wonder how much we miss because of that.

How many times have we abandoned something that was working because it wasn’t giving us enough reassurance?

How many times have we changed direction because we couldn’t see the outcome yet?

How often do we mistake not knowing yet for something is wrong?

Maybe some things are only clear after you’ve walked through them.

Maybe hindsight is supposed to come later. It is 20/20 after all.

Maybe you don’t have to understand every season while you’re living it.

Maybe you don’t need to see through the rain.

Maybe you just need to stop treating the rain like proof you’re on the wrong road.

Maybe you can just be in it.

Rain and all.

Because sometimes?

It’s just raining.

And maybe the question isn’t really…

Can you see through the rain?

Maybe it’s…

Can you be okay when you can’t?