Clouds

I was driving to work today and there were these clouds. Haunting, dark clouds. They were menacing but not angry. These were clouds that had seem some shit and now carried dark gray/black bruises under their eyes and the tears of their memories dripped slowly onto my windshield. These clouds roared in pain and shook with sobs that rattled the ground below me. These clouds knew the pain that only comes from putting yourself out there, hoping to find the answer to a question you can't even ask; and they knew the crushing disappointment when the answer that comes isn't what you expected at all. These clouds know that change is coming. These clouds are ready for the death of winter that comes before the rebirth of spring.

And I want to know if that's how it works. Do we experience life altering, destructive and traumatic change as an explosion of growth in the same way we were born from pain and came into the world screaming? How do we deal with that change? Do we wring ourselves to the core and beat ourselves bloody trying to understand our own pain? What we see in nature is the explosion of a storm followed by a cleansing and a rebirth where the cycle just repeats itself. Is that how forgiveness works? Is that how I can forgive myself?