Coming Out Of The Rain

Here I am, rocking out with CRH in Texas.  She's pretty great.  She and the Texan have been kind enough to take me in when I felt the need to flee the state I'm living in to run away from my problems.  Yes, I am very aware that running away from my problems won't make them even a little bit better, but it's been kind of nice to try to ignore things.  Granted, I can't really ignore them, and I have probably been doing a lot more thinking than one would care to admit.  It's just that I'm alone during the day, and that gives way to lots of pondering.

Today it was raining.  That is not at all unusual for Texas in the spring.  It rains often, and it rains hard.  CRH was kind enough to let me drive her car around today, so I needed to pick her up from work.  As I left her house to go to her place of employment, it was raining pretty hard.  An interesting thing sometimes happens when it rains in Texas.  When I looked right above me I could see white puffy clouds and blue sky.  And yet, it was raining.  And it kept raining.  The closer I got to CRH's work, the better the weather got.

I remember thinking this was a strange occurrence back when I lived in Texas.  It seems so odd to be driving through rain when the sky looks so blue.  Yes, there were dark clouds around me, but they weren't right over me.  (If any of you are real weather experts, you're probably thinking that there had to be dark clouds right over me, but I swear they weren't.)  The best part was the fact that I was able to drive out of the storm.

Now I'm going to go all philosophical on you.  It's seemed for the past while that I am driving in the sun, yet being rained on.  I'm doing all that I can, and yet the rain still comes.  I often have glimpses of real sunlight and dry conditions but I keep finding myself in the storm.

For example, Friday I was able to spend some time with a friend.  I know him from where I live, but he happened to be in Texas this weekend as well.  We've never done anything together, but we decided to bond while here.  We spent quite a bit of time with his family.  And it was great.  They were all sorts of kind and accepting right from the beginning.  I had a genuinely nice time.  You're all thinking that this is the sun shiny time of life, aren't you?  And yet, it's not.  As I drove home that night, I cried quite a bit.  You see, despite all of the awful things that Scuttle has said, and done in the past 8 weeks, I still love him.  That makes me seem crazy.  I've spent a lot of time praying, and fasting, and attending the temple.  Despite what I want, I've been told that I need to keep trying, and I need to be Scuttles friend.  So I'm doing as I can.  Sometimes that is being made very difficult.  It's impossible to be close to someone who is constantly doing all they can to push you away.  When I was with this friend in Texas, I just kept thinking, "Hmm, he's a nice chap.  Maybe I should try to flirt it up with him.  He's nice, his family is nice, why not?"  This is a logical thought really.  There wasn't anything truly wrong with that.  And yet there really was.

Why would I flirt when I've been told that I should keep trying?  Going and doing something fun with a friend is totally ok.  There is nothing wrong with that.  The problem arose when I decided I wanted to go against the counsel given to me previously.  Yes, things are hard.  Yes, I don't see how things could ever work out.  This is when I need to work on faith.  Faith in what the Lord has promised.  Faith in the answers I have been given.  Because history has shown that when you keep asking for something different than what you've been told, it doesn't turn out very well.  (Think Martin Harris)

When I do as I'm told, despite the hardship, I can walk around in the sun.  Unfortunately, like an idiot, I chose to sit in the rain.  Let's be honest, I can quite enjoy a nice dance in the rain.  Gene Kelly totally rocks my knee-highs.  But this is no singing and dancing in the rain moment.  This is more sitting outside, no umbrella, it's cold, and I could go inside, yet I choose to sit and mope in the wetness.  Why do we as people do this to ourselves?  When we follow the instruction given to us, we are happier.  We can have faith.  When we try to forge our own path, we end up sitting in the rain and having no fun.

My choice:  To drive out of the rain.  Just as I drove out of the rain when I went to get CRH.  It's hard, and I know sometimes I'll probably end up back in the rain, but I need to work harder to just keep myself out of it.  To stop looking at what I think I want, and figure out how to want what I've been given.  It's a process.

Does any of this make sense?  Probably not.  I'm kind of rambling.  My brain is a pretty scary place.  It doesn't often make sense.  Despite the fact that figuring this out is hard, and scary, I'm pretty determined.  Life doesn't really come with an umbrella, so I'll just have to get myself out of the rain.