My existence tonight feels like an unsolvable riddle.
Alone on a bench in a park I used to be familiar with, nothing is recognizable. I spent the day decoding glances and deciphering laughs and finding meaning in trivial, five-word sentences. I am disoriented and distorted, viewing the rest of the world through a stained glass window. I cannot comprehend their colors, and I cannot predict their movements.
I don’t feel like a person; I feel like wind and rain and fog and a storm with no eye.
It starts with a drop, or maybe simply a mist—something soft and romantic and beautiful. Something charismatic and bright that holds no presage of what is to come.
Then it is showering down across the earth, pure and infectious. It pulls the vibrancy back into the world, hydrating and joyful, a sign of the abundance of life that surely lies ahead. Rain pours, flowers are revived from their wilt, and the earth is green again.
Soon, it is a downpour. The sheets of rain are magnetic and exhilarating. They pull you in, calling you to dance, persuading you to shout and sing and live. It is thrilling and enlivening, and it is still not the answer to my riddle.
Who am I?
Whether I want to or not, I cannot remain peaceful and calm forever—nor can I seem to remain the enlivening downpour, no matter how hard I try. I cannot ignore my gales; their howling announcements are inevitable.
Behind the mist and droplets, behind the mesmerizing showers, I am a cyclone of sound and movement. It is unavoidable that I come on too strong. I knock over valuable vases and tear through artwork.
I feel constantly one step behind, rushing to catch up, to understand, and leaving the fated destruction in my wake.
The resounding question echoes through fallen trees behind me: Who are you?
I am a cyclone. I am a whirlwind of exaggerated emotion and enhanced reactivity.
I am a tornado. The kind that requires a wailing siren to pronounce its imminent arrival. The kind whose warning I am begging to be ignored.
I am made for dramatics. For downpour-induced confessions and misty kisses. I am made for snapped umbrellas and clothes soaked through, running for cover arm-in-arm.
But the second I am lost, the second I am afraid or confused or overthinking, I cannot control the wind that comes and blows my storm so far out of proportion. My wind whips through a small town in a moment, leaving destruction in its wake.
I wanted to stay romance and laughter, and dancing in the rain. I could not let the way I am perceived be dismantled by destructive gales and raging twisters. I did not want to turn into the harsh winds I knew were coming, so I didn’t.
Instead of waiting for the wind to pick up, I just leave. I stand up from the bench before it breaks. I walk away from the park before it is torn apart. I preserve what I have loved so that it can go on, even if I cannot be there to see it. Before I have the chance to let the wind overtake the charm, I leave for a new place to shower myself over, and I pray that I am remembered well for it.
