"Every storm eventually runs out of rain" is a saying I came across in the darker days of my anemia-induced depression. It was hard for me to see the light in that early period because my brain literally wasn't getting enough oxygen to produce adequate serotonin.
I remember reading the quote* and thinking it was a comforting fact, but also feeling wholly depleted and sure I'd never feel myself again. That I'd never laugh with my new love while we enjoyed the beauty of the day or feel engaged in the work and projects that once set my heart on fire in the best ways.
Truthfully, it took me a while to crawl out of that dark depression. And it's taken far longer than I'd have liked to be at the place in healing I'm at now: nowhere near done and through it, but laughing and living and mending more and more every passing day.
I'm still not totally well.
I still have days where my brain (with the fogginess and depression) and heart (with the palpitations and tachycardia) show me that I'm not getting nearly enough oxygen. Days where my body (with the bone-deep fatigue and frustrating loss of certain physiological processes) reminds me loudly and unapologetically that it's still low on iron.
I still have moments where I'm reminded that:
Every storm eventually runs out of rain, and sometimes storm season is too many months long.
Sometimes there's no rain at all, but the dry lightning sets entire mountainsides on fire, and they burn until there's nothing left to consume. Until what was once lush and full of life is desolate, charred, and a heartbreaking remnant of itself.
And just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. The rain finally comes, and the mudslides wash out roads and reconfigure entire canyons that have stood solidly for centuries, rivers now rushing in previously uncharted directions.
Sometimes, the storm is a furious reckoning, devastating everything in its path.
But even then... the fires eventually burn out, the rain inevitably ceases, and the river learns to carve new lines into the earth as everything adapts around it. And despite how dead the mountainside appears, new growth always comes in time. Wildflowers begin to reemerge from the dirt that's blackened (and ultimately nourished) by the ashes of what was.
Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Sometimes we have to consciously choose to bottom out even harder before we can start the exhausting work of clawing our way out of the deep, dark well that consumed us. Sometimes we have to intentionally break what hasn't broken all the way through so that we can piece things back together how they're supposed to be and finally begin to mend.
We don't like to talk about these truths in healing and growth because they're terrifying and filled with endless unknowns.
We're already suffering, and we can't handle the idea that we might have to do more of that before we can feel whole and human again. But this is loving and losing and living. This is what it means to be a person in the world with a body that's magnificent yet easily disrupted or injured. This is what it looks like to open our hearts and be vulnerable and courageous with ourselves and others.
We get hurt and we get sick.
We lose and we grieve.
We struggle and we fail.
We're burned and charred by life, and the rainstorms that follow wash away all that's known and familiar, comforting and clear.
But if we're willing to dig in deeper and do the work on a cellular and subconscious level, new growth always comes in time. Beautiful things take root in the ash-coated soil of our souls, and new colors begin blossoming from the depths of our being.
This season has given me so many lessons.
It's reminded me what I'm made of and that there's nothing I can't walk through (as ungraceful, resistant, and frustrated as I can get at times).
It's shown me that I'm loved and supported, and I can lean on those around me in ways I never, ever would've seen myself asking for or receiving. This season has been a furious reckoning that I would not have chosen but one I know I will be better for having walked through because I'm always willing to dig deeper into the work. Because I'm always—when the time is right—seeking the lessons and the gifts. It’s only further shaped me and this work I'm called to do in painfully beautiful ways.
So if you're in the middle of a storm of your own, remember:
Every storm eventually runs out of rain, but sometimes storm season is many months longer than we want it to be. Sometimes the aftermath looks like total devastation, and the act of rebuilding seems utterly impossible. Sometimes we have to choose to bottom out further so that we can find that first toehold to rise up from the ashes of what was.
Regardless of how it looks or how it goes:
The sun will shine again, and new growth always comes in time.
This I know for sure.
*"Every Storm Runs Out of Rain" is a quote sometimes attributed to Maya Angelou, but it's actually the name of a country western song by Gary Allan released in 2013.