Stop and smell the Rain.

"Isn't the phrase, stop and smell the roses?" Yes, that is a phrase and a metaphor for life, but that phrase is overused. I feel like rain sometimes gets a negative name. In the summer, we often see that it's going to rain and immediately head inside. But have you ever stopped to think about what the rain does? Or how the "rain" in our lives can be a positive thing? Let's take a step back and look at why we should stop and smell the rain.

Why rain? When my family first moved to California, it rained every day for a solid month. Every day I woke up and hoped for sunshine, yet I was disappointed to see it was raining again. That disappointment turned to excitement when summer finally came around. Yet fire season brought a different type of rain. Ash fell from the sky, and smoke filled the air. I was studying astronomy in school, yet there was so much smoke in the sky every day that I could barely see the stars. Rain was what we needed, and rain was what we wanted. But only when it was convenient for us.

Rain teaches an important lesson. You only want what you don't have. It's so easy to take the little things like rain for granted. The small things that we didn't appreciate until it was too late to enjoy them. In life, there are storms of all different shapes and sizes, from seemingly big ones, like moving across the country, again. To small ones, like falling out of contact with some of your friends. It's easy to be annoyed by storms. But the "rain" in your life is a good thing. When it finally rained in California, everyone was so excited to go and enjoy the outside world again.

Rain often comes at what seems to be an inconvenient time, yet rain in life is necessary. Without rain, there are droughts, food shortages, fires, etc. Storms in our lives are inevitable; you will face trials and hardships. What matters most, however, is how you act when facing the storms of life. So stop and smell the rain, embrace the storms when they come because storms in life are inevitable.

I'll write again soon,

Nia