DANCING IN THE RAIN

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once opined that “into each life some rain must fall.” If we view that rain as something that we would rather avoid at the moment, some trial or tribulation that we would rather do without, he was correct. For whatever reason we only seem to learn from those trials and tribulations that happen at precisely the wrong times in our lives, times when we need to be about something more important. That’s life.

Then there is Vivian Greene whose take on this is: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” Those rainy days will pass. They always do. Yet sometimes we can’t wait them out. We have to plunge in through the rain. We have no other choice. We have to earn how to make the best out of a bad situation. In other words, we need to learn how to dance in all that rain.

That’s easier said than done. Sometimes the rain seems like a deluge. No, it is a deluge. There are times when we are simply overwhelmed by those trials and tribulations. What makes them even worse is that we have done little or nothing to bring them on and, even worse, feel that we have done little or nothing to deserve what is happing to us. We are being rained upon for no apparent reason.

And we are supposed to dance in spite of it all? Pretend that we are having a good time or something approaching a good time? And even if we believe that we are not exempt from such times, that we must be rained upon if we are to learn, that knowledge and understanding in and of itself usually does not make the dancing come any easier. It is still raining and we are still getting wet, soaked to our very bones. There is no umbrella to prevent us from getting wet.

We simply have to learn how to dance in the rain that will come our way in one way or another and for which we can do nothing about except dance. Is it about trying to make the best out of a bad situation? Is it about making lemonade out of lemons? Well, yes. That is all we sometimes can do. The problem, whatever it is – sickness, loss of a job or a loved one, a disability that is long-term or permanent, the list is long – is there and it will not go away.

The truth is that if we do not learn to dance through the rain, it will eventually overwhelm us and make the situation worse. That does not mean that it will be easy, that the pain will somehow lesson or even go away, that the problem will suddenly be resolved. Miracles happen, but expecting or waiting for one doesn’t solve the problem at hand: dealing with the pain in the rain.

The solution? Finding dance partners. We are not meant to dance alone. Finding those partners helps us make it through the rain. They are there for us as we are for them whenever the rain starts to fall.