Juxtapose

It's really a fantastic rain. There is thunder, great bowel-shaking rumbles of thunder, and huge flashes of lightning that literally illumine the entire sky like the light of daytime suns. What an incredible night, one that is my very favorite kind. It's terrible though. It makes me think of everything I shouldn't. All the sad things that I think about when everything is so achingly perfect and beautiful around me that I can't put away the achingly beautiful thoughts of everythingness. It's warm outside with the mugginess of a summer that's not here yet, but the rain is cool and pelting and I wish I were doing something that made a difference. Instead I'm sitting at my familiar computer, on my comfortable chair, with my little Pueblo house nightlight on, and my toes feeling the rain through the screen in the windowsill that I have my feet propped up on. The rain, the rain. I think I'd like to get married in the rain, with Ben Folds playing in the background. I wish there weren't so much lightning so I could sit out in it, but at the same time, the lightning and thunder are necessary and I want them too. It's a catch-22. You can't have the thunder and lightning without the chance of getting electrocuted, but the rain isn't nearly as incredible without the storm aspect. But then again, who am I to be afraid of a little electrocution? Maybe I should put on my old glasses, broken on the bridge of the nose, and see if that will meld them together. Besides, who doesn't want to be able to say that they were hit by lightning and survived? And if I don't survive, what's the loss? I probably won't care about my lack of fame at that point, at least.

My hair is wet. I was out in the rain. I ran through a parking lot the length of some number of mini-football fields to get to my car on the way out of the auditorium. I came from a performance by the stunningly beautiful Sarah Jo who was playing Gwendolyn in the play, The Importance of Being Earnest. As per usual, she was fantabulabulous and everyone loved her, which is not in the least surprising. It was more than once that I, the always-observing friend, saw her friend Brandon look at her face as she talked to me. Not just look at her face, but fall into it. The same look that I saw once when I was in the library at school and saw this girl who is always on campus and who knows everyone and is gorgeous and perfect, but not just because she looks like Snow White, but because she smiles at everyone she passes. I take tips from her, and I don't even know her name. There was a boy sitting next to her at a table, she was looking at her books, but he was looking at her, staring so hard and unknowingly that, no doubt, everything got blurry and all he saw was her face with a white haze of aura-fuzz around it. It was obvious. Then she turned her head to ask him something, a simple question, and his face snapped to attention and smiled at her like he finally saw her exterior. He didn't know I saw that, poor guy. But it was evident that if he knew I had, he would have blushed. That was the look I saw on Brandon. And with good reason.

The drive home was glorious. I drove slowly through all the winding back roads, the rain driving so hard that the highest setting on my windshield wipers could not clear the glass sufficiently to see through for more than a fraction of a second. I left the windows open a bit to let the cool in, and something was on the radio, but who cares? I turned it down. I wanted to hear the thunder. There's still a heavy haze of clouds on the road. Sometimes I really wish I had someone to share this all with. Of course I have my family and friends. During the school year I am so busy between school and work and trying to make it to church that I don't stop to think that I'm perpetually unattached. I can tease my dating friends and make faces at couples making out at the mall as if I were still five and grossed out by cooties (though they are gross) when I don't have to think about it otherwise. But this sort of night makes me think about this sort of thing, because it just does. It's so lovely and warm and cool all at once, and I'd love for someone to share it with. To share everything with. I've never wanted a prince, and I don't like horses, white or not. But still, we all can dream. It's just a dream. Patience behooves me to shut up. God's hands are His, and not mine, and whatever this lust for love that I have in me has got to offer, I have better things to wait for. I don't need anything but Him. Pity that I lose my resolve and end up talking about such stupid things and wasting precious moments of my life on things completely out of my hands. Again, for good reason.

And then there's my sweet baby Teddy, coughing asthma in the bedroom over. Soon he's curled up on my lap, holding a stuffed reindeer, while his head is wedged between my left arm and my body. He is taking his medicines, breathing them in as the machine clunks and sputters next to us, breaking the silence of the night house. His fingers twine with mine, and this is it - this is my love. Someday I can leave and cleave and be one with someone. Until then I can't. Not until babies are too old to whine my name in the middle of the night so that they can get a hug and a kiss before bedtime. Not until they are too old to hold my hand. Until then I'll stay here in the rainstorms and write out blogs about nothing in particular.