Precipitation Participation

Rain Rain

Come to me

Help me feel

Help me breathe

Precipitation Participation

Wow, that’s hard to say.

As I sat yesterday admiring the beauty of the rainfall encompassing my outside surroundings, I began to relive my past attempting to understand how my path as unfolded.

When I was in my youth the rain always possessed some sort of security for me. I loved the sounds, smells and of course the puddles. Never needing a towel to dry my drenched heavy clothes, my family and friends never seemed to understand the fascination I had developed with the descriptively irritating weather.

Growing older through my high school years, the rain seemed seldom show. Sure, I played sports and was always an active outdoors person, so it posed devastating when my baseball games were canceled or the prolific flash and crash of sky lights stopped anyone from wanting to socialize with troubled me. But when it came to an enjoyable rain, I hadn’t experienced the childhood sensation I used to get, in what seemed to be an eternity.

Upon my graduation of high school I was under the impression the world was at my disposal. “I’m grown now, everyone has to answer to me.” Foolish and conceded, I was due up for a rude and unwelcome experience. The summer after graduation my world was flipped upside down when my mother’s untimely and unpredictable death occurred. Living alone with her in rural Pennsylvania, I was a new grad with ample opportunity but absolutely no idea of how to live. Self-sufficiency and maturity were two words my vocabulary did not possess.

As the sirens blared towards our less than stellar townhouse, the silent night protruded my mind and as imaginable my loss seemed insurmountable. Lying in the room provided by the hospital for family of the intensive care patients, I wept as my head spun with a complete turmoil and disillusion. Being July Fourth, the fireworks flew. Popping and chattering throughout the neighboring cities. I stared out the window in complete awe, wondering how anyone can be celebrating in a time like this.

Without the realization that the world was unaware of my mothers fate and misfortune, I cursed at the wind and buried my head from the universe. Expecting the celebration and taunting sounds to rattle my tears throughout the night. A familiar sound silenced the instrumental torture. As the metal roof began to ping with complete solace, I pried myself out of the airless room and ventured outwards.

As the rain fell canvasing the landscape and rolling down my raw cheeks, I felt a complete sense of serenity. My mother understood the power participating in the rain held for me and I strongly believe she showered me with hope.
After that unforgettable experience, it felt as if not only did the world dry but my humility and self-worth became desolate as well. Committing to my inevitable fall through alcohol and any mind-altering substance my life seemed to spiral out of control. My favorite time was sitting in the rain drinking and drugging to excess until my body and mind was completely numb, to the point I could no longer feel the rain. I found the devastating life-style as comforting as my youthful memories.

It took me years before I was able to understand the harm I was allowing my out-of-date security system to create. Taking years of institutionalizing, court fees and crippling depression, I could never fathom an escape from my obvious demise.

I found myself sitting in a jail cell with no recollection of how I had gotten there. I had the previous nights events explained to me from my wife and couldn’t believe a word. Yes, alcohol driven, but the most out of character experience I had ever performed. As I sat feeling I deserved every ounce of what was about to come, the rain began to fall. Watching the street lights disappear in the mist and the barbed-wire fences clang in the storm, I had that overdue wake up call. If I continued down the path I was going, there was a chance I would never feel the rain again. With that one harrowing thought, I took what I had wished would be my final ethanol scented breath.
Upon my release I committed to recovery, both to prove to my family I was willing to change and to prove to myself that I wanted more out of life. I threw myself hard into the program of recovery and sobriety, pledging away any substance that would alter me from me.

One day I told myself the lie most addicts do. I had it under control and I could drink civilized and moderately. I walked to a nearby restaurant and proceeded to get completely demolished only a couple of months after I began treatment. A beautiful warm sunny day, and I was back to feeling numb and amazing. When my wife arrived home she instantly knew and as we began to get heated in tone the rain began to fall. Realizing this time that the rain was not meant to justify my incoherent nature, rather to make me realize how to feel. Even being far from sober the drops rushed me back to reality.

Since that day, I have not taken a drink. I refuse any and all alcohol, committing myself to the sanctity of freedom. No longer do I feel the desire to be controlled by a bottle or plant, My family is growing and my road is widening, one of the greatest feelings to have.

So, as I sat yesterday watching the rain I couldn’t help but reminisce. I dropped what I was doing and walked through my yard in the middle of the rain soaked world. Looking to the sky I felt as if I was alone in this feeling but surrounded by love and an embracing belonging. I stood in a puddle and knew my mother was taking my numbness away. One of the greatest gifts recovery brings; if not THE best; is the sensational ability to feel.

One day at a time.