Die Hard

Some things just die hard--and I think that pure love and habits are two of those things. Allow me to elaborate.

I love rain from the very depths of my soul. When clouds start to roll in, warm tinglies shoot through my entire body as if to say, "Something very exciting is about to happen. Are you ready?" And I almost always am.

Rain is an instant priority.

There are seldom few circumstances that will keep me from the rain. Whatever I have to accomplish that day has a way of slipping to the back burner until I have had my chance to get drenched from head to toe.

So when the Connecticut thunderstorm rolled its way on in yesterday, it wasn't long before I was standing out in the yard, arms outstretched towards the sky and mouth wide open. It wasn't long before raindrops were running off my chin and my elbows, and it certainly wasn't long before I was running around the yard giggling in delight.

Eventually, the runner in me put forward a convincing argument and I found myself racing through the rivers we had once called streets. Cars driving by sent sheets of water crashing over my head, widening my smile and quickening my pace. When the rain let up, my feet eventually found their way back home, where I discovered my little brother quietly playing in a mud puddle by himself.

I couldn't resist.

We chased each other around the yard with handfuls of mud in a game of "mud frow," we splashed in the puddle to our hearts' content, and smeared in a little extra mud where things just looked too clean. 

"But I don't want to take a bath!"

A combination of cross country and childhood has instilled a necessity to smear mud all over me whenever I happen upon it. Good mud should not go to waste, and I firmly believe that faces are happiest when they have wars stripes painted on them. Mud should be shared, and so should experiences--so should lives.

Rain and mud are just a chance to let go. To forget about obligations and stresses and fears, to stop trying to uphold an image and just be. Just live. Just experience. And, in the process, share it with someone else.

I guess you could say that's childish of me. But, to be entirely honest, it's likely that I'll always be a child in this regard. I simply can't see myself ever growing out of this.

Because some things just die hard.

Some things are habits, and some things you just love. Some things, however silly they may be, are a part of who you are. They make up who you are.

And you know what?

I'm okay with that.