TMF 2, Rain 1

Note: Original written on 9/13/2007.

Overcome the Rain

Tuesday (two days ago), I borrow my mother’s car to run errands. Its raining.

Later, I pick her up from work. She asks me if I mind waiting in the car for a half-hour while she exercises at the gym. I agree. I drive to the gym. She offers much unsolicited advice on how to drive. By the time I got to North Gate Shopping Center (where her gym is), I surrender patience. I hand her the keys, grab my bag and tell her “I’m walking home.” I could calm down and wait. No. I will test myself in the rain. I will also test my new backpack and see how it performs against wetness.

I avoid rain, in general. It is wet. I do not like to be wet; not with clothes on. Wet socks and shoes are one of my biggest pet peeves. I do not like feeling my feet squishing around inside of my shoes. My feet are not fish, they are feet and I prefer them to be dry and comfortable not going splosh, splosh, splosh with the sucking sound of soaked sneakers oscillating up, off and back down to the ground.

Rain is, however, one of those fundamentally natural functions of life and the order of things on planet Earth. I consider this aversion of rain a limitation on my enjoyment of life. If it rains and ruins my day – ruins me – then that is undesirable. This was hardly the case when I was a child. I never minded the rain. But time goes by and the sponge that my childish mind is eventually picks up “Rain ruins things.” So I’m limited a little bit more from that point on. And frankly, I can’t stand being much more limited. This is just one of litany of limiting, unnatural, irrational beliefs that define my experience here on the game field of existance.

I, therefore, have something to prove. I have a mission – walk home in the torrential down pour and prove a point. None of this has anything to do with spiting myself because I don’t want to be in the car with my anxious, overbareing mother. No, of course not! This is an epic quest. I will battle the rain. I will test my mettle against my adversary. I will go to the proving ground and come back a man. Or at least I’ll possess the knowledge that I can deal with squish wet shoes for a moment. Besides, I really don’t want to spend another five minutes in the car with someone telling me to be careful when we’re already going so slow that we’re already bordering on traveling backwards in time.

Mission from God aside, I have no intention of getting waterlogged. There is an umbrella in my bag; the first time it comes in useful as a component of my daily bag packing ritual. Hallelujah.

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