Cumulonimbus

I woke with a start, soaked in the sweat of an inexplicable worry for Ashley ushered forth by a sound so uniquely identifiable yet utterly absent from this hot, festering summer—a rainstorm. My head was heavy and spinning as a lifted it up to first glance at the morning’s first light, camouflaged by millions of droplets, then at the clock past the foot of my bed, glaring a cranky “5:02AM” back at me.

“It’s 5:02AM. Ashley is safe in bed.” The words came from somewhere in the back of my head, and triggered a sudden self-realization that seemed to push a rainstorm of tears out with it, mimicking the scene out my window with startling accuracy.

A vague self-realization isn’t uncommon (I exist to satisfy my needs), but a complete self-realization is a mistress as fickle as it is rare. A complete self-realization is a moment in which your perspective shifts, zooming out to unfold the world as a map, arrows pointing to ineffably small points with labels like, “You are here,” and “This person gives a damn where you are.” They occur in times of great emotional stress like breakups or the death of a loved one, while in an altered state of mind, either from narcotics or deep contemplation or meditation, or while on the brink of death, once the fear of dying has past but before you’ve died.

While I sat in bed, my death-grip of a hug wrapped tightly around a pillow I so desperately wished would hug back, the tears streaming down my face twisting “5:03AM” into a fluorescent blur, the universe unfolded. I saw the large, red arrow announcing exactly where I was, but try as I might, I was unable to find any arrows that “gave a damn.” Looking back on it, they were probably blurred beyond recognition by my tears or occluded by the dark, low-hanging cumulonimbus clouds that galvanized this whole excursion.

As the world folded back in on itself, bringing me back to my bed and my thoughts, I wondered what it was that woke me. The rain was hardly louder than a cat’s step against the cool glass, and my alarm wasn’t set to go off for another hour-and-a-half. I found the answer in my first thoughts.

I feel that Ashley and I have always shared a close connection, and it wasn’t until this morning that I attributed the rain, in part, for that connection. It made perfect sense to me after some thought.

“When did I always wake to see her soundly asleep on my chest, smiling beautifully throughout her dreams?” During rainstorms.

“When would she come home, soaked, and wind up cuddling up with and falling asleep in my warm hug?” During rainstorms.

“What was the most perfect time I ever spent with her in the car, lights scintillating through the windshield to illuminate her passionate eyes and gorgeous demeanor?” During rainstorms.

“And when, even after she’s exclaimed that she never wants to spend her life with you, does she call you, frightened, alone, and in need of a comforting voice and a loving hug?” During rainstorms.

My mind blazed through every word like a Chihuahua on coke, reasoning, dismissing and re-reasoning until I thought my head would explode. What was it about the cold precipitation that always made me smile as the first drops splattered against my windshield? It was the thought of Ashley needing me, needing me, to keep her safe from it all. I was beat down over and over by my speeding thoughts as everything flashed so completely, miserably clearly.

“The only connection Ashley and I have is that I want to keep her safe—nothing reciprocates.”

The last line of that mental soliloquy had me in fits again, but that time I just buried my face in that cold, limp pillow, sulked down beneath my warm sheets, and hoped I would dream about Her.