What is it about rain that is so romantic? Is this the way it feels when you pour out all of the emotions that have been weighing on you since the first time you spoke to them? Is rain the way love feels? Perhaps it is cold, sudden, uncomfortable, and uncontrollable, but it is also fascinating, nurturing, and unexpectedly comforting. Perhaps it's the anticipation of the sun, as well as the imagination of a warm and peaceful life together. But what if that life never comes? What if the rain leads to a thunderstorm, which turns into a flood? What if the rain becomes acid rain that seeps into your pillow at night when you can't sleep? What then?

 

The thing about love is that it is based solely on hope. It's like being addicted and hoping to never reach the end of it. It's hope that the rain will bring a sunny day with the smell of fresh soil and a family picnic with the warmth of vanilla cake and tea steam. It's hoping that your dreams will not get broken like the fallen trees in a thunderstorm, and it's making every effort not to get wet even if a flood may take you away.

 

Love is the trust you place in one another. Trusting that you will both brave the rain and hold each other's umbrellas until it passes. It's running towards the sun, hoping to catch a rainbow to prove you're doing it right. It’s being each other's sun, drying each other's salty tears, warming each other, being a safe space.

 

Love is eventually realizing that it wasn't the rain that was romantic, but the awaiting of the rainbow and the sun that followed. It's realizing that it allowed for growth, change, and the washing away of the harmful. It's seeing how hoping and trusting strengthened love and made the sun warmer when it came. It’s knowing that if it hadn't been for the thunderstorms and floods, the golden rays of the sun would never have emerged.