I Couldn’t Find Quiet I Went Out in the Rain

It's a slushy rain. Something close to snow and adjacent to hail packed in large gobs that softly patter into my face. The slush is a reminder that spring hasn't won yet, that winter still exists in the second week of April for some reason. I am out on the street, walking. I am wearing jeans a sweatshirt and a jacket, marvelling at the fact that that is neither my uniform nor my pajamas. It has been too long since that was last true, even longer since it was true on a weekday like today. I told myself I was going out to get dinner for myself, but that's a half lie. I wanted to be out in the rain. Take the time to let it patter my cheeks, walk in its puddles and drink in its gloom. To see weather that matches how I'm feeling, that all my doubts and self hatred can rest in with something resembling ease, even when those doubts are the knowledge of how much of an asshole I am as a rich white boy walking around sad in the rain. There's a peace in the rain, an acceptance it feels like. As if the world always lies with the sun and bright blue sky, faking a joyful smile for the moon, and now the smile slips letting out the rain. The world is being honest, giving what feels like the only reasonable response to what the world is. That's bullshit though. It's just a full patch of clouds that has let its contents fall when the air around it was just barelly above 32 degrees fahrenheit. There is no more truth in my angsty interpretation then in others who just see that it's gross and awful out.

But few of those people are out, they are safe inside leaving the streets nearly empty. I can walk with my head down and still avoid running into someone. It was another day like this when an older man told me too look up and smile because I was "doing good" I was in uniform then. He saw the long hair and the red jacket and assumed a pretty young women saving some poor child. He was wrong on three counts. Now though, I am ignored. I can be a part of the city without having to interact with any of its ocupants. The slush can patter my hair, and I can look up to see the light gray clouds lying behind the buildings along main street, and I can smile. A smile that isn't a hesitant fleeting one from a moment of humor in the bleakness, but a smile that comes as a reaction to the shitty imperfect city that's a part of the shitty imperfect world where I live my imperfect life, a smile that says that that's ok, that I can live with, and make do with shitty and imperfect at least until the rain ceases.