Figuratively and literally, this past summer has felt like a tropical storm that will never cease. Even when I have screamed into the skies, the downpour has not seemed to falter. When one good thing happens, two bad things come to follow. The downpour, she seems to follow me when I am the most vulnerable and the most weak of all seasons. Even in the sunshine, I feel her looming over me when I am heading to work, trying to focus in class, and 1 o'clock in the morning when my eyes are plastered to the wall contemplating how I cannot go to sleep. She presses heavy on my heart even when I am surrounded by family and friends, by the people I absolutely love the most.

Those important people in my life ask me: why don't you just make it stop? The sadness, the way you tore my insides apart and told me I could not possibly make it without you, these are the questions they would have. The encouraging advice of others did not seem to matter because the rain, even if it was simply a drizzle, was present in my life and I made her an idol. Something many could not understand that the rain was not the issue, it was the cloud that has seemed to always follow me. That very same cloud was the one who told me at six years old that I was never going to be able to read and write like the other kids. The cloud dampened my spirits in every single way that she could. She seemed to be the only thing I could fall back on in my life.

Until I met the fire inside of a me. She way shy, she was weak, she was not as cunning as I imagined her but she existed within me. No matter how much the cloud or the rain tried to stop her, she burned inside of me. The fire made me realize that I was worthy and I deserved far more than the dreary and dampened clouds had given me. I decided that I DESERVED to know who I am and what I want for once in my life. The point of this story I am telling is that everyone has that cloud and everyone is is distracted by the rain but throughout our lives we tend to forget the light that is present inside us. It would be a travesty to live without that light because that is our soul, ever noticed how one spot of darkness in a room full of light does not stand out? In a room full of darkness however, one light will always stand out. Let that one light be you.