I Need More Rainy Days

There’s something about rain that makes people think. It might be because the monotonous patter of water drowns all the other human sounds out—the rumble of vehicles on the nearby street, snatches of music from a stray radio, the din of conversation from nearby people—the sound of rain tends to mute these things. Rain also has the power grayscale the world; our attention to colorful and shiny things dissipates along with the gradual loss of light. The rain can turn us partially deaf and blind, allowing us to be more introspective than normal.

That’s what I’ve been these past few days. 

I am not the sort of person to often look back and wish for the past. This is partly because I have bad memory, and the available space tends to be taken up with nonsensical brain chatter about makeup, clothes, tv adverts, the pleasure of sneezing, and other random things. If you step inside my head, you’ll be run over by a constant stream of thought that follows no signs and no traffic lights. This imaginary stream rarely contains anything older than a year ago.

The other reason why I rarely look back is simply because when I’m done, I mean I’m done. I deal with the present the best way I know how and I am not in the habit of making apologies for it or regretting it. If I know that doing something with finality is something that will bring me a lot of pain, I will simply not do it. If I hurt people I most probably mean to hurt them. Living this way is rather precarious; what I get out of it is the nonchalance of the insensitive. Being unapologetic has its merits and one of them is that I turn out happier than most people.

When I do think about the past, it’s only to compare it with my present. Lately I’ve been ruminating very hard about the sort of person that I am. Am I better? Am I worse? I don’t care what people think, frankly. It’s myself I’m worried about, because, you see, I am in a constant drive to improve myself. If I’m failing my own internal grading system then something must be wrong right? I haven’t completely evaluated myself yet. I need more rainy days.