it's raining again. i don't know if you have figured it out by now, but i love the rain. i love how every color stands bright and new in stark contrast to the sky, and how the clouds lay low and thick like a big blanket, closing off the world. i've missed it.

in my room in The Old House, i could hear every drop of rain on the roof. it would pitter-patter against my window and slap onto the concrete outside, plinking into deep puddles with floating islands of leaves and wisteria flowers. at night i could close my eyes and hear the gurgle of water in the rain pipes. now everything is insulated and i can barely hear anything over the tick-tocking of the clocks in my room. the only way i can sleep is if i open the window and listen to the staccato of the rain beyond the overhang of the roof.

i used to be neighbors with my best friend, and every day we would walk our dogs to a park about a half mile away. one time in particular stands out in my memory. it was a few weeks before i moved away, and we were trying to make the best of the time. we walked to the park like any other day, and when we got there we ate carrots that my friend had brought in a sandwich bag and hid out in the play structure. it was one of those days when summer is just around the corner and a promise of rain makes the air muggy and muted. we traded stories and whispered secrets and just talked for hours about nothing and everything and nothing again. when the sky started to darken and the time came to leave, it started to rain. just a soft drizzle at first, but it quickly grew into a raging storm with winds that made leaves dance in the air and our hair whip in and out of our faces. we ran down the streets laughing and screaming and dancing like lunatics, like wild women, drunk and elated. people always say that teenagers think they are invincible, but that was the only time i ever thought that was true. skipping down the street with wet hair throwing itself about like a living thing and my laughter being snatched away by the wind, that was the only time i felt like the world could do what it wanted and it still couldn't break me.

there are about 500 things i should be doing right now, but i just can't. i have spent today in various states of hysteria ranging from mild to having to frantically root through my backpack to get to my inhaler because i cried so hard i got an asthma attack and my hands are shaking too hard to hold a pen and i can't stop crying and i am freaking out like freaked out fucking freak and i really really don't want to be alive.

so i'm drinking cocoa while craving coffee and wanting something one hell of a whole lot stronger than the both of them. ladies and gentlemen of the school board, i present to you the product of all your hard work. see? you are making a difference.