#oneaday Day 670: Wasteland Diaries, Part 18

I’ve spent the last few hours sitting in my room staring at the wall, memories going round and round my head. I intended to spend some time meditating, calming myself, bringing myself to a feeling of peace and serenity, but it wasn’t going to happen. Unwelcome thoughts kept clouding my mind; memories kept interfering with my relaxation process.

I decide to go out for a walk. Maybe that will clear out my head. I let my front door slam behind me and freeze for a moment as I’m not sure if I’ve got my keys.

Fortunately, I have. I let out the sharp breath I’d taken and try to centre myself, but I feel uneasy, on edge, almost panicky. It feels wrong to be “avoiding” him like this, but I know it’s the right thing to do. I need to be able to look at things in an objective manner — to calm down — and spending day after day in that place wasn’t helping. I am tired, I am depressed, I am lonely and I am getting poorer by the day. The inheritance money has almost dried up and I have absolutely nothing to show for it — a pokey little flat that I’m sure has rats and definitely has cockroaches; no car; no job; no prospects for the future beside some blinkered hope that I might be able to rebuild my shattered life into some semblance of normality after the worst possible thing that could have happened, happened.

No. It wasn’t that random, that clinical. I made the terrible thing happen, so it’s only right that I live through the consequences. I’m the one who set in motion the chain of events that led to where we are now. And I’m the one who will have to pick up the pieces.

Probably.

A few light flecks of rain hit my cheek as I walk down the street, and I look up. I hadn’t thought to look at the weather when I left the building, but it’s clear that these few flecks of rain are just a prelude to a gathering storm.

I see a flash of lightning, and hear a rumble of thunder off in the distance. I feel that strange feeling in the air when a heavy thunderstorm is coming, and wait for the inevitable torrent of rain to drench me as I continue walking.

I come to that grotty little park a short ways down from my building and walk into it. It’s deserted as usual — why would anyone want to spend time here, however many park benches they put in it? — but I decide to stop here and let the storm come to me.

As I stop, the heavens open. The lightning flashes and the thunder follows almost immediately. The light spattering of rain quickly builds to a full-on downpour, running down my hair, plastering it to my face and making my eyes sting.

I’m without a coat, without an umbrella. The rain is cold, but refreshing. I kneel on the floor and watch the ripples in the growing puddles and the tiny splashes that each droplet makes as it impacts the pavement. While I’m cold, my eyes hurt and the feeling of water running over my skin and sticking my clothes to my body is unpleasant, for some reason it has ceased to matter. This storm is the thing I’ve been waiting for, a feeling that I’m being cleansed, the slate wiped clean, to start again, refreshed. For a storm always passes, and its effect on life around it is noticeable. Grass grows back greener, once-dry ponds are full once again, and the world is refreshed. There’s no scent better than that of the natural world after a heavy storm.

Of course, such smells are far from the big city, where a rainstorm simply makes traffic heavier, but this pathetic little park is separated enough from the revving engines and the blaring horns that I’m only dimly aware of in the distance.

I remember one time when I was going to meet him, early in our relationship, and this kind of storm happened. I’d got to the restaurant early and it was closed, and there was no sign of him. I was underdressed for the occasion — “dressed to impress”, I liked to call it, with my shapeliest black dress and the most impractical heels I could find — and that became even more apparent when the rains started. But when he arrived — exactly on time, just as he always did — he didn’t mind that my hair I’d spent ages on looked ridiculous, that my makeup had run and I wore a thunderous expression on my face. He simply took off that long coat he always wore, wrapped it around my shoulders and led me back to his car. He drove me back to his place, lit his fire — a real fireplace! — and let me warm myself by it. He made me a hot cocoa and gave me a biscuit — a jammy dodger, I could never forget — and then put his arm around my shoulder. Then he kissed me softly and tenderly, but there was such intense feeling behind it that I immediately burst into tears.

Tears like those which are running down my face now, mingling with the worsening storm and plopping onto the pavement, a tiny splash with each one that falls. Everyone around me is too wrapped up in their own situation to care about me, as loud as my sobs are.

That means I have to make this right myself. I close my eyes, set my jaw and grit my teeth and try my best to stop crying. I am shaking, upset, anxious — but I feel a new sense of determination. This is it. This is what I needed. I can’t pin down exactly what has just happened, but I know that from here, I can move forward. I can make progress.

If I can’t save him, I can save myself.