A Rainy Day

Thank God it’s Friday! I can’t wait for the weekend! I had a wonderful prayer walk this morning and a beautiful meditation session at lunch. Today is going to continue to be the best day ever. I can feel it. It’s a rainy summer afternoon yet breezy. Most people don’t like the rain and find it depressing. I, however, love the smell. It smells like an airy waterfall. It sounds like peace. The thunder and lightening sounds like two clouds making love for the first time. The rain has so much personality. It can describe the mood for your day perfectly. Sometimes it is a day of sadness, and all you can do is cry due to a broken heart. That’s the day you put on Etta James and cry with her. The rain can also have the mood of despair and suicide where you can’t cry or even get out of bed. You might not even know why you feel that way, but the feeling is too strong to move. The rain can also mean three roommates stay in, order pho and fried rice, and binge watch “Living Single”. It’s when you laugh so hard all day with friends that you cry. I call it a “Sex and The City” day. It could also be a day of wonder. Water has memory, and it is refreshing. You can find life in the rain. In my opinion, that is why pastors dip you in the water for baptisms and why priests sprinkle water on babies for christenings. It is because you can be reborn and transformed in water. You never know who you will turn into once you are free to be yourself, in the rain. When you’re free to let your hair down and not be worried about what it looks like when you go back under your umbrella. When you’re free to allow the water to become absorbed in the cotton of y9our shirt and not be worried about if someone can see your nipples through it or not. It is allowing the moisture to penetrate your pores and not be worried about if your makeup is running or not.

Today was this day. I knew the rain was bringing a surprise and an opportunity with it today. A knock cam e on the front door. My guard dog, Prince, goes off like a freight train mixed with a bass drum.

“Who is it?” I yell as I run down the stairs.

In my mind, I just knew it was Amazon bringing me more supplies to stock up for the pandemic. I look through the peep hold, and I see a short person. Must be my neighbor’s four-year-old daughter, Rylie, looking to pet Prince I think to myself. I open the front door. Prince pushes passed me and runs out the door.

“Prince! Go home!” I yell.

As Prince shamefully walks back in the house, with his brown ears pulled back, I look up, and there he is. I had never seen him in person, but I knew it was him because he looks just like his father. It has now gone from drizzling to pouring, and I cannot help but stare at this ten-year-old boy in shock. This 5’0 little man made my heart skip beats. This child was not mine, but the longer I looked at him, the more love I felt rising in my soul for him. It was the true meaning of love at first sight.

“Can I come in or are you just gonna let me get sick out here?” he asked sarcastically.

“Oh. Sorry. Come in. I’m just shocked you’re here. How did you get here? What are you even doing here?” I asked frantically as my mind was racing.

“My dad said to give this to you”, he replied as he pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and passed it to me.

I was confused by intrigued at the same time so I opened it. The note read:

Hey Beautiful,

Can I talk to you? I’m sitting by the pool waiting for you. I brought my son with me because I thought I needed back up. You wouldn’t speak to me so hopefully you’ll speak to me now, since he is here. I know you’ve always wanted to meet him. Please D. I just need five minutes of your time.

Love H

I looked at the young man who I thought would be my step-son one day and asked, “Do you wanna watch a movie while I go talk to your dad?”

“No. I’m just gonna play my game”, he replied.

“Okay, well if Prince bothers you, just tell him to go to bed. And help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you want a snack or something.”

I was so nervous that I honestly did not know what to say. I thought to myself, is my house ten-year-old proof? No. Not at all actually. I gave him one of his dad’s jackets and my umbrella and said, “On second thought, you better come with me.” As we stepped out the front door, the rain had slowed back down to average speed. I walked through the rain without an umbrella and ready to be unapologetically me. We were supposed to meet up and talk about our answers to the question, What do we want out of our relationship and from each other, but I had not seen or spoken to the man I love in five months, since our last argument about how “hard” he is all the time. He barely seems human even though I am opening up to him. After two years, he is still the same military soldier who will not let me into deeper parts of his life. His argument is I don’t understand him. Why is he here? I had a whole speech ready to go in my head, and at the end, I am going to tell him his stuff is packed up upstairs in a box and he can take it with him. We walked through the gate to my apartment complex’s pool. As soon as my eyes caught a glimpse of the 6’6 love of my life, I started to cry. The closer we got to him, the faster it began to rain as if my heart was beating to the rhythm of the raindrops. God, he looks amazing. This man’s eyes are like a worm hole that suck my heart into its abyss every time I see them. Don’t get lost in his eyes. Don’t get lost in his eyes. I repeat over and over to myself to concentrate. He immediately took off his jacket, put it over my head, and asked, “He didn’t want to stay in the house?”

“You didn’t give me enough time to collect all the knives and loaded guns around the house, so I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him by himself”, I replied. He pointed for his son to go sit in the gym which was a couple feet from the pool and had a clear sightline. He put on the playlist of love songs I had made him for his 36th birthday and asked me to dance. He held me close even though my head only came up to his chest. He does not wear cologne, yet he smelled like a high fashion male magazine. We danced for only a minute, in the pouring rain, when he looked dead into my eyes. My chant and all logic went out the window of my brain, as if they had exited stage left. It seemed as if he was holding back so many tears and so many words.

“I’m not a mind reader” I said. “If you need to say something to me then be honest with your words and emotions.” He let me go, stepped back from me, and sat down.

“I love you, but I’m not this romantic, cheesy guy. Is this really what you want?”

“I want honesty”, I said as I took the seat next to him. “I can watch a romantic comedy. I don’t need to live it. I just want you to be honest with me about who you are, what you want, and what you feel.”

“Do you think I’m not honest with you?”

“I think you compartmentalize your feelings, but I want to know you – the entire you. I know I’m not perfect, but I’m always willing to learn if you’re willing to teach me. But I’m not as militarized as you are. In fact, I’m not that way at all. I want to find a common ground, but it always seems to be your way or the highway. I am willing to teach you how I want to be loved, but you have to be willing to learn too.”

“I’m a rough guy, but I want to learn how to be softer with you”, he said.

“I know you want a strong woman to stand by your side, and I am very strong. However, I can’t be strong all the time, but I promise to always be strong when you need me to be and be attentive and aware as to when that is.”

As he leaned in, he said, “Neither of us should have to be strong all the time.” He kissed me softly. His lips feel like pillows, and I didn’t want to let him go, but I knew I had to.

“Before we kiss and make up, I need to know your answers to the question because I need to know if we want the same things”, I said hesitantly yet bravely.

He handed me a piece of damp paper. I tried to read it but couldn’t. He took it back and said he had another copy in his phone. I told him my answers were in my notebook in the house, and I would be right back.

It was not the walk of shame, but the walk back was nerve wracking. So many questions flew through my mind. Are we going to want the same things? Are we going to be able to agree on being able to give each other what they need? Can I unpack his box before he notices? Is he as nervous as I am? Does his son like me? I’m sweating nerves in the rain. I walked in the house, grab my notebook, and asked Prince to give me a high five for good luck. As I walk back, I’m gripping my notebook for dear life. I sense a transformation in the rain. Is it going to be that our relationship changes to make it stronger? Will the transformation be within one of us, and we grow without each other from here on out? Will we grow with each other forever? I guess I’ll find out soon enough. I see the rain drops on his forehead rolling down to his cheeks. I see him looking over his own answers. To the untrained eye, he seems calm, but that’s the man I love so I know he’s nervous. I sit. We both take a deep breath, as we look at our papers then look deep into each other’s eyes. We stared into each other’s souls, as if praying our minds and the words on our pages were in sync with our hearts. This is it. The moment of truth.