Rainy Saturday

I can tell it's raining when I wake up. That it will be humid even though the air is cool. No alarm set, I'm disappointed to see it's 7:00am – too early for a Saturday. Saturdays are meant for sleeping in, drinking coffee because you want it not because you need it, and going out with friends. It'd be okay if it rained on Sunday; Sundays are for relaxing, preparing for the week, and ordering Chinese takeout. It shouldn't rain on a Saturday.

Thunder rolls softly through the sky as I lay, staring at the ceiling. I'm deciding what to do with myself now. While I wallowed in disappointment about the rain, I missed the window of time where I'd be able to fall back asleep. I've never been the kind of person who can fall asleep whenever and wherever they want. I don't sleep on road trips or on planes. I listen to music and gaze out the window, pretending I'm someone else doing something much more interesting.

I shift my legs around under the covers to find the cool parts of the sheets. My thoughts float around like there's a wind that blows in one of my ears and out the other.

Thank God I did the dishes last night.

Am I out of K-cups?

What do birds do when it's raining?

My mouth is so dry.

I wonder if the neighbor's cat is okay. How is it already halfway through July?

Who decided that the weekend is only two days?

I should brush my teeth.

The random and fleeting notions in my head fade and I'm again aware of the rain pattering against the window and the bedsheets tangled in my legs. I think about the last time it rained. Carrying groceries back to your apartment in Chicago and we cursed the sky – please just hold off until we get inside. And the countless other times I begged the clouds to blow over, to hold back. Don't cancel the baseball game, don't soak my clothes, don't ruin the day. That's the thing about humans. Everything is about us. We want things to go our way, to control the situation so that we get what we want. Even the rain suddenly becomes about me and my needs. Rain, however, is absolutely something we can't control.

My relationship with control is interesting in that I have a hard time defining it. Most times I'm fine with someone else choosing the restaurant or planning the party. Other times I can be stubborn as all hell. That's how I am with a lot of things; I go back and forth, don't always have a set preference or response. You could say that makes me a black or white kind of person, but I think I stand somewhere in the gray area, the undefined. What I want or how I feel depends on the situation: my mood, the amount of sleep I got, location, time, how hungry or tired I am, the weather.

At the end of the day, of course we all want control over the things that happen in our lives. There are some days when I want to hold back the rain and some when I don't care if it downpours. There are always going to be things I can't control. However, there are some things that are always up to me. I control my attitude. I am in charge of my own happiness. I choose who I surround myself with. I control my body, what I do with it and what I don't. I am responsible for how I treat others. For all the things that aren't up to me, there are a lot of important things that are. I can't stop the rain on a Saturday, but that's okay because there are plenty of Saturdays to come.