The rain is falling outside. It’s dark, it’s late and the cloud cover makes the night seem blacker than I remember it being for this time of night. It’s quiet. The rain has been falling all day, and everything is flooded.

Standing by the window, I’ve watched the brilliant flashes of lightning outside without my usual enthusiasm. I’m cold, and I feel alone. The streaks of illumination across the sky do little to brighten the darkness behind my eyes.

My body aches, and I am tired, but my mind is wandering endlessly through memories that I cannot control any more than I could stop the rain falling from the sky.

I watch for signs, listen for the sound of the wolf howling, but it doesn’t come. I hear that sound that lets me know you are but a breath away in time and space, but you don’t come to me… you don’t answer me… you don’t call out to me any more.

You are so very far away from me, both in distance and connection. I can reach out and almost touch you.

Almost, but not quite.

So I sit and stare, and do nothing, while I watch for the words that will never come. I’m numb, so I do not cry.

And then the wolf howls. I hear it once, and then nothing. I rush to look, to see, to hope… to wait. I wait, listening for the wolf to howl again. I wait, for just that moment, with both fear and anticipation inside of me, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

Expectations.

But the wolf does not howl again, and I walk away, dejected, rejected, feeling used.

I walk to the door and throw it open, staring out at the rain falling from the sky, the puddles on the sidewalk where the drops of water make ringlets in the small pools. I open the screen and step out onto the porch and can feel the spray of the water as it splashes on me from the edge of the cover.

With reckless disregard, I step out into the night, and lift my face up to the heavens, and feel the cool water begin to hit my skin and streak down my face—soft and cool at first, but then, hotter and faster as my tears mingle with the rain. I stretch my arms out to either side and close my eyes and sob for the pain I feel, deep inside of my soul.

At least with the rain, no one can see my tears, and I do not have to feel ashamed for not being strong enough tonight. I turn around once, with my arms still stretched out to my side, and then wrap my arms around myself, and the tears continue to flow with the same pattern as the rain.

My hair begins to hang in ringlets, sticking in patterns on my face and neck. My satin gown clings to the curves of my body more as the water saturates the fabric.

I am alone. I am cold and wet, and I am crying.

But I am free…

Sometimes, when the water comes, whether tears or raindrops, one has to take a moment and spread the wings, let the water cleanse, and then and only then lift themselves back up and fly.

In the morning, the sun will dry the water that came tonight.

Behind me now, the wolf no longer howls…

…and I will fly.