Rain

It started raining a bit today. We are definitely going to have a drought since it barely rained more than 10 times or so I could remember. I don't mind the rain. It gives me the excuse to feel allowed to be at home and feel a tad more introspective than let's say, a very sunny day. It is not sulking, if it is raining outside.

I have been feeling kind of off this week. A bit more irritable than usual, which I don't like, but, oh well, that's how it is. It has turned an melancholic edge now, which I don't particularly, but oh well, that's how it goes. Writing always helps, since it gives me a way to acknowledge my feelings instead of dismissing it as something irrational or frivolous like so many women are taught to do.

Maybe I'm just coming off the high of the Obama ascension. Now all that excitement and hope has progressed into the usual drudgery of politics. For me to see the GOP, who already lost their power, to not even try to get behind the new state of affairs is really disappointing. I mean, maybe I'm more an idealist than I'd like to admit, but, it makes me pessimistic once more that maybe all that unity, all that momentum of change, may not be enough to get over that entrenched yap of partisan rhetoric. It disappoints me to see basically every single republican congressman to behave like spurned children in the sandpit. I was actually looking forward to perhaps change my mind about the other side, and just chalk up at least part of the past 8 years as oh, you know Cheney dust. But no. They have to act like children.

Or maybe I'm feeling like playing Joni Mitchell's River nonstop because it was a bad idea to watch a romantic comedy on my own over takeout. I wholeheartedly advise against doing such a thing. It just renders what probably would have been a rather enjoyable movie into something that is neither romantic, nor comedic. And there isn't much left for a romantic comedy after that.

For some reason, I'm really missing my friends tonight. I have a lot of friends, but most of them don't actually live very close by since I got to know quite a few of them when I wasn't living in the city. That is perhaps the curse of having a very mobile life. When you move, your social circle doesn't move with you. And the ones that live close, they just happen to have other things to do tonight, oh well, that's just how it goes.

For whatever reason, tonight reminds me of the first night I spent in college. I was by myself, in a triple that was empty other than my two suitcases. I was one of the first to arrive, and it was so quiet it seemed like I could be the only conscious thing in the whole building. It was an old building, like this one. It was one of those particular moments that I was very aware that I was alone. Not in the sad and lonely sense, but still, I was alone. Alone in my thoughts, despite the rain and the trees and other living things, I am the only person to feel my own skin, my own breath, my own being.

It reminds me that I should be good to myself. That even if you're surrounded by friends, family and loved ones, ultimately, I am the only one in my skin. And there would be times when there would be neither friends, family, nor loved ones. And I'd better be comfortable with that, alone, with nothing but the rain.