The Gifts of Rain

The Girl and I went to “big playdate” today. I’ve been a part of a mom’s group here for years and they have had a weekly playdate at the same park, on the same day since the group’s inception. And I used to go religiously. And then life got crazy and I pretty much stopped going for the last year. But I thought now that it was just The Girl and me that it would be a fun thing for her to do again to keep up with her social interaction and get me back out into the world of friends and community.

And I don’t think it was until today that it truly sank in how very much I’ve changed over the past year. Seeing these women who used to be such intimate pieces of my everyday life and who became casualties to the deep, soul-level contraction that I put my life through over the last year really illustrated in black and white the fruits of my labor.

There was a time when I would've seen any of these women and focused only on how much thinner or prettier or successful they were than me. Or how much better behaved their children were. Or any number of other deficiencies that I saw in myself. And today as I was standing under a huge tree dodging the pouring rain with one of these women, catching up a bit after not seeing each other at all over the last year, that I realized that I wasn’t doing any of that. I was purely, and completely, focused on the simple fact that we were sharing space and it was lovely to see them. Focused on how big all of our children have grown.

I cannot tell you what a gift that realization was. To have the self-given permission to simply just be. To not have the need to hide or cover up or suck in or brush over any number of self-perceived faults and blemishes. To allow myself to be taken exactly where I am. Right now. And to be able to in turn see them for all of their glory and beauty. I love the rain.