As rain hit my roof at four in the afternoon, I began to think.  Usually around four I feel like sleeping for several weeks at a time, but not while it rained. While it rained I listened to the pitter patters of rain drops hitting my roof, the droplets like a piece of music as the crescendo took me through the progression of the piece, from drizzling to pouring and back again. Listening as four became four-thirty and then five, I realized that rain is like emotions. The drizzling comes as life is calm and all of a sudden the notes on the pages of your song begin to crescendo until everything is taught. Taught with stress, and worry and the rain just stops for a second. One second until it comes crashing back down in a flood of emotions, pouring out of you like a storm pours from the sky.

The type of storm matters, too. This one was brooding, the thunder rolling slower than molasses through the streets of Boston as it grew to full potential. The lightning, striking, sharp with anger. And they both had the rain to match. This rain echoed the rumbling thunder on the roof and anticipated the streak of lightning in the sky.  Listening made everything clear, as rain turned to emotion, emotion turned to thought and thought turned to dance. I danced my way through the thoughts in my head, embracing the music and the crescendos as the rain and the thunder played. Embracing the pieces of me that applied to what it was that I wanted to achieve an understanding of. Embracing the music that is the life I live.

Slowly, but surely, the rain began to clear up and everything I had been trying to understand, had its own specific answer. At five-twenty-two, the sun began to shine through and everything for the moment seemed open to me and I felt ready to jump. To jump into whatever I chose and exceed, to jump to new heights in my mind’s eye. To create. The world became my playground as words flew from my pen, to paper. I realized that in order to accomplish anything you have to face it head on, and embrace it. Whether it is anger or excitement, you cannot fully understand where to go next if you are standing on the sidelines. You cannot be afraid either because fear does not stop the greats. And to be great, you have to learn to dance in the rain. Once you’ve danced your heart out, you jump. Jump so far that six, seven, eight stories seem like nothing. Take every storm you pass through on your descent and take control. If you don’t jump now, you could live one thousand years without ever really jumping at all.