walking in the rain

Saturday,  I took a walk and got caught in the rain.

It was an interesting experience.

Normally, people avoid walking through the rain.  The instant a down pour starts, people scatter.  We can't stand the thought of being drenched and out in the cold.

As the rain hit, I realized I would be just as long to turn around and head home the way I came.  The path behind was longer than the path before.  So I walked on.

Years ago, I used to read a comic called Hound's Home.  The author made a comic where a person is desperately running to get away from the rain.  Only to make it home and take a shower.  The contradiction has stuck with me for more than a decade.

So I decided I wasn't going to pick up and go at any faster pace than I had been.  The rain started lightly, and I kept walking.  And I realized: despite the seeming trouble that I happen to be in thirty minutes from now I will barely remember any of the experience.

And the rain got harder.  I could see the house as I turned the corner.  There was an urge to break into a run.  I didn't.  And that realization hit again:  ten minutes from now, I'll walk into my driveway and stare at the rain, protected and observing.  Twenty minutes from now, I'll be playing with my kinds.  And thirty minutes from now, I will have completely forgotten about the rain.

And I was right.

And it happened just as I thought it was going to.

It made me realize that some of the darkest times in my life have suddenly just disappeared.  And then it's back to a sense of normalcy.  A place where nothing seems to be complicated.

The problems of the moment are the problems of the moment.  Nothing more.

When the moment passes, the problems will be gone.  The moment might be twenty minutes.  It might be two days.  It might be three years.

But one day, after slugging through the rain, you will realize you have walked into your carport, and the misery is behind you.

Keep walking.