I played in the rain today. I played hard.

In some fleeting moment of genius at around 9pm I rallied the troops and by troops I mean a single partner in crime prepared for battle and made a mad dash for the pouring outside world. There wasn’t really too much pre-meditation. A couple minutes standing outside on the balcony letting myself get soaked, pondering the workings of the world—and before I knew it I was sprinting with a good friend to the deluge in wait.

There are some points in my life, my week, my day, that I get in this random fit of childish happiness. It’s easy to recognize. Usually, it involves this googly half mouth open smile and uncoordinated jogging in place accompanied by odd groans of joy. I know, kind of scary, but it’s me. Today, I got that feeling once again. I can easily recall moments of the same emotion—running into a best friend at random in a parking lot, prepping for a diving start onto a magnificent 50 foot long Slip and Slide setup down my backyard hill during the summer, and tonight I got that lurch of childish satisfaction as I burst through the metal doors of my building into the pouring rain.

I wrote a short introduction to my blogging career describing a random day in my life to give a little glimpse into my day to day as a fresh start and I had really grappled with the idea of writing a short quaint description of myself and my personality. Most likely it would have been filled with short declarative statements like “I’m ridiculous” and awkward contradicting sentences like “I’m intelligent but foolish.” But I think really the deeper goal of this entire smorgasbord of thoughts is an attempt to illustrate myself without actually writing it out simply, without restraining it to a one-dimensional frame.

Some of my readers have known me since I’ve been born. Others I have never had a conversation with face to face. Some already helped shape who I am while others I hope will sometime pitch in soon enough. And for some reason I think that letting my readers discover who I am rather than read who I am is better way of going about all of this.

I used to be the shy kid, and in some senses I feel I still am. If you saw me now as the happiest child alive high on elation stamping with unrivaled force (both feet of course) in every puddle in sight you probably wouldn’t have guessed. But my brother was the one who aced Kindergarten with the exception of his “unsatisfactory” in behavior as he raced through his work for the sole purpose of bothering every other kid after he had finished. I was the one who jumped behind my mother, deathly afraid to ask the worker at KB Toys for help to find my coveted Nerf Gun Crossbow. But years later, I found an outlet that taught me how to throw myself out there, let loose, scream at the top of my lungs, laugh like never before—just speak from the heart.

That’s obviously another story, another day, another blog, but for now, I’ll just tell you that I’ve come to find it second nature to just open up. It keeps me sane, it keeps me alive. I’ve had run of the mill generic first conversations, and I’ve told people I’ve just met about my sea of tears when leaving home for college just because they asked. That’s how I’ve learned to deal with whatever comes next.

When I was jumping in circles staring up at the sky with my mouth wide open in a futile attempt to catch as much rain water as possible tonight, I wasn’t just being the idiot skipping around in the rain. I was preserving my sanity, I was dealing with the looming first round of midterms, I was dealing with stress, I was refueling-- I was just washing myself off .

Labels: rain

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 11, 2007 at 1:16 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.