Hope's Still Here - I used to love the rain!

I used to love the rain. I would run out just to play, walk, run, or dance in a summer storm. I still do sometimes stand out in the rain with my head tilted toward the sky just feeling the water wash over my face. However, now Hurricane Florence has hit and is threatening a lot of people I care about with a lot of wind and a lot of water.

Confession: I may be a North Carolina girl at heart but never really been a big fan of the beach. For all my past love for rainstorms; I generally don't like swimming or being in anything other than a pool. I love Outer Banks, areas along the Sound, Cape Fear Basin, and the beach; but not the ocean. Kind of hate it or rather terrified of it. I would always come up with ways to spend the least amount of time in it: oversleep, blame my pale easily sunburned skin, freckles, being a girl, etc. And wouldn't you know it all goes back to my anxiety, my fears, and my long bumpy journey through life.

The reason I'm scared of the water is because I can't see the bottom or what's around me most of the time and it goes on forever - immensity. I can't control it and I can't control my own body's path when in it completely; and thus keep it the heck away from me. Bonus points: it can be very dark and stormy looking sometimes so sort of like a personification of my life.

Anybody else feel like that; figure out that one of your childhood fears has everything to do with your adult anxieties. I lost someone I love, watched both of my parents fight horrible diseases, fight my own demons and who'd thunk I'd be terrified of things I can't control or situations where I'm not sure of where I stand. Controlling things or at least feeling like I can is how I survived so as I try to discover a new way of doing things I'm confronting all my past fears and hang ups to see if they're logical/normal or another manifestation of the crappy road I've been on thus far.

This right about the time I would love to stand in a short summer rain or smell the air of the South right before a storm. Thanks to Hurricane Florence (hurting my beloved North Carolina) and healing (which is taking an annoyingly long time) I don't know if I'll play in the rain the same way I used to.

Do you ever feel like that? That you keep finding ways in which the darkness has changed you or created leftovers that you have to deal with. I guess its true what they say:

"No one gets out of this life alive ... Life is a process, not a goal." - Charles Franklin

Here is a link in honor of National Suicide Prevention Week. Stay safe and ask for help whether its for help fighting the darkness ...

Or surviving a hurricane. 

• 17 Apps to Help You Get Through the Hurricane - NPR 
• This App Could Help You - ABC 
• Hurricane Florence: How to get help during the storm - ABC 11