A New Rain

She said that it was appropriate that it should rain on New Years Eve. It was cleansing, a washing away of all that had preceded, a fresh beginning to all that was to come. My enthusiastic agreement excited her. She hugged me. I don’t know who she was or whether I’ll ever see her again, but it seemed the perfect way to begin a new year.

It was still raining when I walked to my car the next morning. Drops of water clung to the branches of each naked tree like crystals. The world was soft, quiet, inviting, as though it had broken open to a center of comfort. I reveled in it for a moment before making my way down the long driveway. I laughed a little to myself, and although it was only for a brief moment, that feeling resounded in me like a tentative promise of eternal joy. I could be happy like this forever, I thought.

I left for work this morning at 6, making my way down the deserted main street, smiling at its profound emptiness. The winter lights hung across the street, filled the tiny trees along the side, twinkled in the vast darkness of the world just before the sun rises. The moon shined ahead. It was a huge moon, not quite full, but grand enough to make the universe feel closer and more connected than anyone who saw it could ever imagine. It was the way a fabulous artist would paint night. It was simple and complex. It was perfection.

On my way out of Starbucks, I passed three people making their way into the day. Each one said hello. Each one smiled that smile of understanding. Each one knew the beauty of life at these early hours before the sun. We were connected in that way, in every way, if only for an instant.

I thought of all the kindred spirits I know and all I have yet to meet. I thought of those I will never meet, those who share my thoughts and feelings and desires, but whose paths will never cross with mine. I wonder if they think of me too.

Aren’t we all, always thinking, always wondering, always imagining those versions of ourselves living different lives in different places. Sometimes my soul is heavy with the lives I am not living. Other times, not. Sometimes I am happy to be exactly me, exactly here. Those are the moments I call life.

What will this year bring? Who’s to say. My life has continued to change and evolve so rapidly, that often words cannot come quickly enough to keep track. I have yet to determine whether that will always be the case or whether it’s simply what happens in your early twenties when you have no direction, when anything is possible. Does that feeling last? Does anyone ever actually settle into a life?

On Thursday I’m meeting with three of my best friends to discuss finding a house together. What a lovely new beginning that would be, a home of our own, a family I can really see as family. Just the thought of it thrills me to no end.

But of course, even that won’t be final. We’ll live there a year, maybe longer, but then it will be time for a new home, a new adventure, a new chapter in our lives. Life continues forward. We move into the new year with hope, with joy, with the knowledge that at some point, the rain will come again and we will be reborn.