I absolutely love rainy days.

-The kind of days that are cool and drizzly and overcast.

-The kind of days that demand sweatpants and maybe some fuzzy socks.

-The kind of days where a scarf and a warm cup of tea are your choice accessories.

I love those days.

I love them because they’re rare.

I live in Colorado, a place that’s absolutely famous for it’s sunshine.

I wont even pretend for a moment that I’m not enamored by southern California, but if you actually look at the stats, Colorado has more sunshine than even the sunniest of vacation destinations.

But sometimes I have to be honest in saying that I get a little bit tired of the sunshine.

I get tired of everything looking one way all the time. I become exhausted by the expectation that each day should be full of those moments with the windows down and the wind blowing through your hair… your local country station on full blast.

Every once in awhile, especially for a sunny, sparkle-driven person like me, its nice to have a reason (an excuse maybe) to be a bit melancholy.

It’s nice to have a reason to escape the pressure to ‘make the most of each day.’

Or maybe it’s that ‘the most’ changes forms and all of a sudden ‘soaking in the goodness of the day’ requires nothing more than a good book, or time spent watching drops slide down a windowpane.

I love the simplicity of rainy days.

I love that rain makes colors and smells and moments pop- almost more than the sunshine.

I’ve been thinking a lot about rain recently. It seems that these days, ‘overcast’ is a friend that stops by each afternoon, giving the sun a moment to rest.

And this week my insides have matched the weather perfectly.

This past week has been one of the more painful I’ve had in a long time.

My brain and my heart have been in a serious wrestling match as I’ve gone back and forth- trying to make some really hard decisions in some really tender areas of my life.

It’s an incredibly tough thing to want something so much- but to know, somewhere deeper than your brain can even understand, that at least for now you need to do something different.

I’ve cried more in the past week than I can remember crying in a long time.

They haven’t been ladylike tears either. They’ve been big, fat tears- the ones that you don’t even see coming until they’re bursting from your eyes.

And as I cry, the rain falls.

And I’m glad.

Sunshine feels insensitive and out of place in my dreary melancholy.

But there’s been something unexpected about this last week too.

There’s something surprising that I’ve noticed about the rain- and about sadness.

They’re refreshing.

And this is a profound discovery for me.

I told you a few days ago that I charge through negative emotions like a bulldozer- seeing them as unnecessary and inconvenient interruptions to my joy.

But after opening my eyes again to the delicious, cozy, peacefulness of the rain, I’m starting to really appreciate a little touch of melancholy. Because, like the rain, it’s profoundly beautiful and has a special ability to highlight the loveliness of life.

This week, I have felt like a little girl wrapped up in a giant fluffy blanket. My family and friends have been filling my life with such love that sometimes it feels like my heart can’t even contain it all.

My family is at the best place we’ve been in a long time- spending hours around the dinner table talking and laughing and trading stories and sharing bits of truth. It’s been the softest, sweetest place to land, and a place that feels like I always wished it would.

My friends have been a dream. I had not one, but two sleepovers last weekend. Trading in my adulthood (or whatever that means) for PJ’s, sharing beds and running around neighbors yards at 2am like we did when we were still skipping around in cheerleading skirts with bows in our hair.

I’ve spent nights cuddling my best friends when it feels like their world is crashing down around them. And they’ve spent hours with me as I’ve cried, thinking that mine is crashing down too.

Everywhere I turn I’m surrounded by friends so dear to me that they hardly warrant such an impersonal name. They’re soul mates, they’re sisters, they’re the ones who help me understand, in a real and tangible way, that I’m not alone in this big, crazy world. Not even when it’s raining.

This has been a week of painful decisions, of weighing what I know to be true and what I want to be true. It’s been a week of surrendering things that I want with all of my heart into the hands of the One that made my heart in the first place- and trusting Him with everything.

It’s been a week of rain, and of cozy mugs of tea and of padding around the house in my pajamas until way too late in the day.

And it’s been refreshing.

Refreshing in the way that makes colors and smells and moments pop. Refreshing in a way that gives my soul space to breathe- allowing it to trade expectations for cozy pajamas.

With rain dripping down my windows and tears streaming from my eyes, I’ve felt true sadness this week. But I’ve also felt a deep sense of newness.

I’m refreshed, cleaned out, and from a place of pure surrender, I can start to let things grow again, and start to notice where the newness was already taking root.

And through the drizzle, through the cool air and crisp smell that surrounds me, through the tenderness and the honesty and the complete letting go of expectations- the coziness and the Love makes a promise.

As my mom said last night over dinner…

“There’s so much joy coming.”