The Reality About Rainbows: Hope Doesn’t At all times Look Like We Anticipate

“If in case you have ever adopted a rainbow to its finish, it leads you to the bottom on which you’re standing.” ~Alan Cohen

There’s nothing extra exhilarating than using in a Jeep by plenty of standing water. With every push ahead, my pal Angela expertly maneuvered by monumental puddles, sending fountain-like arcs of aquatic glory previous my passenger-side window.

This was pleasure to me.

It was a welcome reprieve contemplating the previous couple of years had unraveled in methods I by no means noticed coming. In reality, this watery surprise, cruising by the quaint streets of the beloved seashore island I referred to as dwelling, was a uncommon outing for me.

I wouldn’t name myself a shut-in precisely, however in the event you had noticed me out and about in latest months, you may need likened it to a unicorn sighting—uncommon and a shock to the system. Uncommon, as a result of leaving my home required one thing apart from pajamas. Surprising, as a result of it meant I had someway rallied after a morning of ugly crying.

As of late, the ugly cries got here much less continuously, however getting out the door nonetheless required cautious planning and a wholesome dose of constructive self-talk. Angela, sensing all I had been by, didn’t try to fill the house between us with senseless chatter. She let the air breathe, permitting our hearts to settle right into a comforting silence.

And wouldn’t it? In that silence, as we rolled ahead over the waterlogged street, a rainbow appeared.

It was magnificent. A full curve stretching throughout the sky, untouched by a single cloud. We each took it in, wordless at first, till Angela lastly spoke the thought we had been each holding:

“This has to imply brighter days are forward.”

I nodded, hoping with the whole lot in me that she was proper. Not only for our neighborhood, which had been pummeled by weeks of relentless storms, however selfishly, for me. I wanted this to imply one thing. The universe wouldn’t place one thing so breathtaking in my path if life wasn’t about to shift in a significant method… proper?

At that second, though I wasn’t prepared for it, a tiny doorway of hope cracked open in my coronary heart.

Angela pulled into my driveway, gave me a type of deep, soulful hugs she’s recognized for, and I stepped onto the sand-packed pavers, feeling one thing I hadn’t felt in a very long time: the risk of reduction.

However reduction by no means got here.

The following morning, I awakened anticipating transformation. I brushed my tooth, appeared within the mirror, and waited for the shift. After which it hit me. Nothing had modified.

Worse but, the whole lot that had as soon as shattered me remained intact, as if locked in a forgotten pause. My father was gone—endlessly. And as a substitute of the readability or closure I had hoped for, I used to be left with the unsettling actuality that some items of life can by no means be totally mended.

By some unknown drive of grace, the years, months, and weeks main as much as our final conversations allowed them to be gentle, even heat. A reminder that the love we shared, although imperfect, continued to maneuver freely in each instructions. And nonetheless, his sudden departure despatched shockwaves by my household, shifting fault strains in methods I couldn’t management. Unable to bear it, like a sea turtle surprised immobile after a sudden freeze warning, I collapsed inward and started my retreat from the exterior world.

Then, there was my future looming over me, a clean slate ready to be stuffed. My identification had been tethered to elevating my boys, however quickly, my nest could be empty.

I had no roadmap for what got here subsequent. I had tried to carve out a brand new path by writing and constructing a aware and self-compassionate neighborhood, however since my father’s loss of life, that dream and the power for it had light.

My reflection met my gaze, unsure and hesitant. Fifty years etched into my pores and skin, positive strains tracing each laughter and fear, a strip of silver roots marking the passage of time, but I felt invisible in a world that had seemingly moved on.

What now, rainbow? What now?

And past the grief, past the exhaustion, there was one thing else.

Anger.

How dare that rainbow give me hope? How dare it let me imagine, even for a second, that issues had been about to get higher? I felt tricked, betrayed by my very own willingness to imagine in one thing past my struggling.

However as I spiraled deeper into my chasm of despair, one thing else took form on the sides of my soul. A fact so easy, so unshaken by my sorrow, that it stopped me in my tracks.

I lastly discovered the reality about rainbows.

Rainbows don’t exist to alter our lives. They don’t include guarantees or ensures. They don’t seem to be right here to inform us whether or not issues will get higher or keep the identical.

A rainbow’s solely function is to light up what already exists. To take the unusual and, for a fleeting second, drench it in coloration. It doesn’t erase the rain, nor does it undo the storm. Nevertheless it shifts our notion. It permits us to see the world, and ourselves, in a method that feels momentarily brighter.

And perhaps, simply perhaps, that’s sufficient.

Possibly therapeutic shouldn’t be about ready for all times to alter however about studying to be with life precisely as it’s. Possibly it’s about making house for the complete spectrum of our feelings—grief and surprise, despair and hope, ache and wonder—while not having to drive one away to make room for the opposite.

Possibly the rainbow was by no means a promise of transformation. Possibly it was merely an invite to see my life, my grief, and even myself by a distinct lens.

And so, as a substitute of cursing the rainbow for failing to repair me, I let it educate me one thing else.

That I’m nonetheless right here.

That even in grief, I can expertise awe.

That even in uncertainty, surprise can nonetheless discover me.

That even within the hardest moments, gentle doesn’t disappear. It refracts, scattering in methods I won’t have anticipated however nonetheless can select to see.

And perhaps, simply perhaps, hope isn’t about believing one thing exterior will come alongside to avoid wasting us. Possibly hope is just the braveness to maintain going, even after we don’t but see the trail forward.

So, I’ll preserve going.

Not as a result of I do know what’s subsequent.

Not as a result of I imagine the whole lot will all of the sudden fall into place.

However as a result of there may be nonetheless gentle on this world. Gentle that’s stunning, redemptive, and multi-faceted, and I wish to preserve trying to find it.

Even within the rain.

Even within the in-between.

Even in me.