Romneka G.

Where the Storms Find Me

Let’s talk about how everywhere I want to be, there is a storm.

I wanted to be in Payson, sitting quietly at the lake. Rain. Not necessarily a storm, but cloudy and rainy nonetheless. I headed up to Sedona-beautiful, sacred, healing Sedona-and was greeted by a windstorm. Not necessarily a storm, but strong enough to blow my tent damn near off the hooks.

Now I’m on my way to visit family in Mansfield and this time, it’s a literal thunderstorm. I don’t know if it qualifies as an actual storm on the meteorological scale, but it’s a storm nonetheless.

So I asked myself: body, mind, heart-where should I go? Where should I be? What should I be doing?

And the answer I keep getting is:
Not here.
Not here.
Not here.

Be there.

But where the hell is there?

It’s not overseas.
It’s not local.
It’s never where I am.

I have no idea where I belong. All I know is this relentless pull to go… there.

Here’s where perspective comes in.

Because despite the weather, the inconvenience, the discomfort-I have gone everywhere I’ve wanted to go. Sure, the skies weren’t always blue, but I still made it. And I’m still deeply, eternally grateful that I went anyway.

Would I have preferred sunny skies and perfect weather? Of course.

But every time, without fail, I got to experience the sunshine after the rain. And with that in mind, I can see that I was always exactly where I was meant to be. There was purpose in being there. A purpose served by enduring whatever came with the experience.

That’s perspective.

Experiencing things exactly the way I was meant to-in each moment, on each trip-healed something in me. Healed parts of my heart and my brain. Something about seeing things differently cracked me open. Sparked something. A catalyst I didn’t know I needed.

Sure, I could choose to dwell in the negative view. But I’m choosing something else. I’m choosing to see it as it is. No judgment. No drama. Just the facts.

And just like now-heading toward my next camping destination-I’m mentally preparing to face yet another storm. But I’m realizing something else about myself too.

I prepare.

I take the time to think things through. Sure, I panic sometimes. I’m allowed to feel all the feelings. I’m allowed to have emotional reactions to what happens around and to me. But after that, I respond. I make a plan. I gather resources. I set myself up to not only survive the storm but to endure it.

And enduring… that might be one of the reasons I’m still here.

There have been so many moments when I could have, should have, would have died. And yet-here I am.

I don’t know how long I’ll endure. Some days, it feels like I have thousands more in me. Some days, it feels like I barely made it to noon. Every morning, I wake up into gloom and dread. Every morning is not sunshine and stars. But every morning… I wake up. My eyes open.

I don’t know what I’m meant to do with this life. I don’t yet know how I’m meant to sustain it. But I do know this: today, I shed tears of joy. Because another piece of the puzzle has been placed. And I am one piece closer to feeling whole again.

It might have taken wandering through the Southwest, homeless and uncertain, to get here.

But I am here.

Exactly where I need to be.