No Apologies...Love the Storm

Weathering the storms of life and becoming a better person.

 No Apologies...Love, the Storm

Ever play music to get pumped up for a challenge?  Haha yeah, me too.  I love an anthem that rocks me to my core, erasing all my fears and doubts as if it were champagne flowing through my veins.  

Nothing compares to the pure exhilaration of believing in yourself.  And nothing should. 

For so long you suffered through the pain, barely allowing others in to your world.  Afraid of rejection once again?  So you sink back in the shadows…hiding your true emotions concealing the sadness in your eyes with the brim of your hat, wearing sunglasses at night, working all hours, pushing through without a break just so no one sees who you really are underneath it all. 

Why oh why do we all try and pretend life is great?  I am so tired of the there’s not a gray cloud in the Fakebook Sky and it’s always sunny on Instagram life.

Get real.  The weather is so unpredictable, yet predictable.  All us Floridians know that it’s going to be either partly sunny or partly cloudy with a chance of rain.  And you can bet your sweet a*s, it will rain somewhere in the sunshine state.

Especially if you have one day off and desperately want to go fishing, like my buddy Shane.  Nothing would give him more pleasure on his day off than calm seas, beautiful skies and lots of fish biting his line. 

But, just as life, so it goes, that nothing turns out the way we planned.  Despite careful planning, lining up all your little ducks in row, or even if you go off half-cocked it seems life takes you where it wants you to go, just as the weather predicts if you fish or stay in and watch a movie.

We can’t control these unfortunate circumstances.  And how boring would life really be if we planned every single detail out exactly to be just so perfect? 

Oh, I think it wouldn’t be fun at all.  I don’t know about you, but I definitely enjoy watching a movie with a twist, an ending I never saw coming, a killer I didn’t expect or to shed a tear during a sweet scene in a comedy. 

If you could chase away all the cloudy days of life would you?  What if you could have sunny days and blue skies forever, would you be happy? 

Hell no!  Anthems weren't written because life is perfect.  Champagne wasn't made to celebrate ordinary moments of life. It's the momentous occasions in life that call for the bubbly, the sunshine after the rain we all love. 

I dare you to taunt life and weather.  Two bad a*s forces of nature to reckon with and will only make you better if you play the game their way.  Allow them to scare the s**t out of you and make you want to cuddle up with your blankie, thumb in mouth and assume the fetal position. 

Maybe we don’t know it in the moment, but looking back, we can be grateful for the change, something that shook us and took us in a completely different direction than we set out on.   

One night, it all clicked.  Everything came full circle.  It was a magnificent experience, especially for me, as a writer, I am always looking for profound moments of life that will change me and better yet someone else.  What I saw and felt and understood that night was necessary to close a chapter of life and begin a new one. 

Emotions, ideas, thoughts, memories, moments of time I want to capture them all… but sometimes, I just need a minute to lie down with them all and relive the joy, the pain, the shock the surprise and the trauma of it all.   As mine, just mine.  Then I can give it back to the world, the way it should be. 

This night was that moment I was able to embrace it all.  I captured it just so and want to share it with you.  If it weren’t for sharing it first with my friend Shane, I wouldn’t be able to give you this glimpse of what it means to snuggle up to the storm, in all its all glory.

Although it was late, we were still awake and high fiving to random comments that only makes sense after a few cold ones as we kicked back to enjoy our night. 

Foreshadowing is everything my friend.  Just as we sat back, in our usual comfortableness with each other, fighting over who played what song next and falling into routine banter to outwit each other, that’s when it all hit.  Seriously.  The winds picked up in gale force, the lightening ripped through the sky and the thunder boomed like the boss of the night. 

Comfortable, sucking up the pain and the rain...it was a night like this that showed me once for and for all that Shane and I were actually holding our own in a great big storm.   As if on a metaphorical cue, he stepped out in the gustiest wind whipping, lightening crashing part of the storm and smiled in spite of all its fury.  No apologies, love the storm.

And when it’s all over, and you realize you survived, regardless if you cried like a baby, peed yourself or whatever, you will still reel in the sheer joy of knowing you survived!  Let me say that again…you weathered the storm! 

And don’t lie, when you tell the story again to your friends, it will come off as if you chased that big bad storm away.   Right?  Oh well, your secret is safe with me.  I too have chased away a storm or two.  Maybe they chased me too…right where I’m supposed to be. 

Change is the storm of life.  We never know what direction it will take us.  All we know is to hold tight to what we love the most, hope for the best and make no apologies, love the storm.

 

Reviews

[Kathrin S]

I like the sentiment that's expressed here. Sounds like you (or the narrator) have learned a valuable lesson!

Here are some notes/suggestions:

Overall: I think you could express your thoughts even clearer if you had an overlying 'storyline': e.g. tell us this lesson you learned by describing that night with your friend, instead of telling us about the night with your friend as part of the lesson. Does that make sense? I think a story with a message keeps the reader's attention more than a message with a story.

- Beginning: I really liked the first paragraph, you pulled the reader in with a question, and the sensory language makes us imagine it better.

- "in to your world" -> "into your world"

- "true emotions(,) concealing ..." For me, there were too many things listed in this sentence. Consider either cutting some out, or putting full stops between them for emphasis.

- "there's not a gray ..." put these two parts (the ones about Facebook and Twitter) in quotes to make it clearer.

- For me, you skipped around too much in the next part. For example, I would have been interested to know more about what happened to Shane. He wanted to go fishing, but then what happened? Did a storm start just as he was pulling out of the harbor? Did he prepare all his gear and then it had to start raining, so he had to turn back? Let us know!

- "Two bad a*s forces ..." Check the sentence structure of this.

-"to snuggle up to the storm, in all its all glory" cut one 'all'.

Overall a good start, keep working on this!! I'd love to read other pieces you've done.

[Karmee]

like the set up, your imagery was amazing as well. Like the detail as well. Nicely written

[Jill Cobb]

Thank you! I appreciate it!