Rain: (Not) A Romanticization

 

You know how much I hate the rain, but it wasn’t always the case. You see, we are not born with a hate for something, with a love for something. I have always been captivated with the way strange, seemingly unrelated experiences are keychains that will forever intermingle in our lives. This is me, and the rain.

I remembered sitting shotgun through the streets of Strathpine neighborhood, the rain is heavy pelts against the windowglass. We were on our way to a bookstore, and once we arrived, we tumbled out of the car like pearls, laughing like maniacs. I don’t recall the name of the store, but I did remember the warmth of the shopkeeper lady’s smile, commenting on our state of drenched. Three surrogate sisters living shortlived life on a new continent, limited days of first-world privilege. I was so happy back then, hoping I could live this life that was never mine.

Dragging the reel of time way back, rain meant jumping puddles with my sister and mindlessly listening to my mother’s scolds with a hint of exasperated joy in her voice. Rain meant cuddled up in my blanket, a book in hand—safe and warm in my private world. Rain meant sitting together in front of the TV, not really caring what was on because we were all together, anyway.

Rain meant mundane but wholesomely special conversation on a borrowed balcony and on a borrowed time, with a first love I held dear. Touching our socks-covered feet together, as lightning and thunders splitted the sky. Rain meant an excuse not to never ever ever leave, wishing that we could stay like that forever and ever and ever. Rain was, as cliche as it sounds, also a metaphor of a clean slate, a new beginning as wafting petrichor signaled the start. Of days start anew.

It was then and this is now.

I can’t shake up this feeling of discomfort when those godforsaken droplets of water break out of the clouds. The dread of being trapped with the rain around me is a fuel for me to retreat. I don’t know what changed, maybe it is the unfamiliarity of my surroundings, my lack of safe space, or merely a change in my mind. Rain is an inconvenience—holding me back, holding me out. Rain is an archenemy to my immune system, always has been weak since day one, what a sickly little girl. Rain makes me agitated, helplessly seeking for a feeling that I cannot decipher, clawing thin air for an answer. Rain brings out what I hate in myself, irrational fear of being lonely without a cure, making me feel too much it's overwhelming and please please make it stop.

I despise the rain, because maybe as time goes by, I began to resent my so-called first love that turned to be an utter dipshit of a one-sided heartbreak. I loathe the rain, because maybe I had realized that the dreams I wanted for myself are not always in tune with the truth. Rain is no longer a metaphor, it is just another reality in this very, very, real life. And I don't think I've made peace with it all.


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