WP: Head In The Clouds

 Writing Prompt: Write a scene in which a character's last words are: I find peace in the rain.

From the POV of Madi from my work in progress: Looks Like That.

Song: Head In The Clouds by Hyde

 

Trusting my gut is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

 I've read every article, asked every one of my questions, and researched the topic until I'm no closer to trusting myself than I have come to truly trust in human nature. Trusting others is more manageable even though there's more probability they'll break me. I'll blindly throw my trust out like a life preserver for others to grab and drown in my sorrow before I trust myself. 

 It's a vicious process I wish I could understand, but I've failed thus far to shake the ground beneath my weary feet.

Sure, I can blame the abuse, blame the change in the tides, the weather, or the simple act of human nature doing what it was hard-wired to do. To survive. I could also blame survival, lay blame at the feet of my mother, or throw blame into the wind and hope it sticks to something. Yet now, in all the realities I've lived in my head, I'm afraid all the blame is on me. On me holding on to this archaic belief system I was raised on, if you could call my upbringing being raised. 

 I guess I don't trust myself or my gut instincts because, many times, they have steered me wrong or right. Still, the simple fact is, is that I didn't rightly know if I was feeling an actual feeling or if I was stuck somewhere else, in the past, holding onto the last shred of hope. Was I experiencing a pang of the present, or was it the gut punch of the past? Was I entirely in my present, or did my nervous system slip back into the cold winters from years ago? Was I clutching my red string of fate, or was it the blood-red snow in my shaking hand?

 I couldn't be sure, I could never be sure, even as I sat in the rain, staring at the bobbing of umbrellas in the distance at the park entrance. Reality was what reality was, but the reality in which I found myself sitting was rather dull and damp and convoluted with outdated thoughts, thoughts I was sure I had healed long ago. This is why I didn't trust my gut because it made me run. It made me run, made me numb, and made everything on my body drag me down because I failed to feel the rain saturating me straight through to my soul until I was heavy. 

 I blame my blind panic, then, if I could blame anything at all for the shitty reality, I find myself in. Even with the jumbled mess of emotions rioting inside my veins or with the heaviness I find myself draped across a park bench, soaked head to toe, I find a sad peace in being weighed down. Like a balloon tethered to society, my head in the clouds, I find a mellow kind of peace in the violence of the rain as it washes my tears away. With no one around to fake the happiness I don't feel, I can be free to express the emotional wreck inside of me versus holding it just under the surface of false hope and faulty gut instincts. 

 A shiver creeps up my spine as I straighten up, looking side to side before I roll my head back and close my eyes, letting the rain wash over all of the pain I had held onto. Why I ran, I had no idea, but inside, it had made sense; as my sure-footed feet slapped at the pavement, it all had been clear, but now? Running made no sense. Slipping out unnoticed did nothing but make my heart heavy; creeping across the hall on tiptoes and ducking in between rain gear passersby like a ghost made me weak with grief. Was I to be stuck in this constant battle of past and present? Was this to be my future? Sitting in the summer rain, head tilted to the sky as grief and years of pent-up sadness mixed and mingled with raindrops? Was I destined to feel this sad time and time again?

 If my gut instinct was right, we'd be here for a little while longer.

 

 I guess, then, it's lucky for me that I find peace in the rain.