Where the Rain Don't Fall...

I'm a small-island girl. Always have been, always will be. Trinidad fits into Florida many times, and though I've lived here in the US more than half my life, there are early notions I'll never outgrow.

Until I was eight or so, I honestly thought the rain fell everywhere at once. In Trinidad, you see, that's more often true than not. Any decent weather system covers the island. And then one day, I walked home from school, and the most amazing thing I had ever experienced, happened to me. It had been raining all afternoon, I was soaked. I didn't particularly mind; rainy season isn't all that cold. I wasn't paying much attention, either - until I walked out from under the raincloud, like walking through an invisible wall, and out into sunshine.

Why am I remembering this tonight?

Because I started the day under a worse cloud than just some rain.

There are things I honestly hate about myself. I hate depression. I hate that it's so easy for me to slip into negativity. I hate that sometimes it's so hard for me to see beyond my own nose, that it's so easy to project my own fears and doubts onto everyone else, easy to write that internal script that says I'm a fraud and no-one who knows me well could respect me or think well of me. So I take my storm cloud with me, because it really has nothing to do with anyone else, and almost no direct outside interference matters.

"I think well of you."
"yeah, well... of course you'd say that to my face. you don't even like me enough to be honest with me, why should I listen to you? Go AWAY."
or
"yeah, I know *you* think so. but you just don't know better yet. get away from me before I wind up hurting you too."

"you're better than this. snap out of it."
"you have no CLUE what I'm going through. fsck off."

"I don't know what to say to you."
"of course you don't, because I'm *right.* this isn't helping one bit, so I'm going to go away now."

Today, though, I get to remember that I'm lucky. Because I came across something I maybe wasn't meant to see, but that meant a great deal to me anyway. A discussion of me. A potential disaster that turned out to be something really different. And then a remark made to me cemented it, if I needed the reminder - and I did. I have friends. Real friends. And I don't just behave because it's expected of me - I behave towards people as I feel they deserve to have me behave. It may be hard to remember that while I'm feeling put-upon and paranoid, but believing otherwise is selling myself and everyone else short. And just because I feel something doesn't make it true, no matter how strongly I believe it... the rain isn't falling everywhere. So thanks, everyone, for putting up with me. Maybe one of these days I'll actually make it to some emotional space where the rain doesn't fall. Or at least, not so often or so hard.