I Need a Raincoat!

It seems to be raining in our lives…and thinking about it, it has been raining for more than a year now.  I have determined that it is time that I get a raincoat as it doesn’t seem to be stopping.  We might get a short break from time to time, but never long enough for our clothes to dry.  The rain is so hard when it comes that it rips through our clothes and the hail bruises our bodies, it rips through our umbrellas and renders them useless.  Though I suppose that even with a raincoat we will still get wet, but not drenched…and it can provide some cushion from the hail of life beating us to death.  I wonder if I could get one fitted with football or hockey padding for added protection.

In this I am defining rain as stress and difficulty, and the hail stones as surprises that aren’t good surprises…like sudden deaths.  In January my brother in law was found dead…funeral #1 and the beginning of what would become an ongoing storm in our lives.  The contract between the union and the stores expired in March…and they just barely reached a tentative agreement this morning.  Talk about living on pins and needles for 6 months…every time my husband’s phone got a text every muscle in my body seized up, and I wanted to throw up.  Last week I drove to Orange County to attend the memorial and graveside service for a woman that I loved more than even I understood.  She loved me when I felt no one else did, she accepted me into her life and her loving arms when I was a misfit, and she loved me despite my own and sometimes other’s stupidity.  I feel her loss more than I can even speak…for several days all I did was cry.  This hailstone hurt me beyond reason, and I am fairly sure after this year that there should be a pain pill for this.  There must be some way to stop this hurt from over whelming a person when it comes.  But, like everything else in life…all we can really do is clean up after the pain has subsided and pray that the next hailstone doesn’t come soon.

As I was mourning the loss of my dear friend I was listening to one of my favorite artists:  Counting Crows.  The song that struck me is called “Raining in Baltimore”

This circus is falling down on its knees

The big top is crumbling down

It's raining in Baltimore fifty miles east

Where you should be, no one's around

I need a phone call

I need a raincoat

I need a big love

I need a phone call

These train conversations are passing me by

And I don't have nothing to say

You get what you pay for

But I just had no intention of living this way

I need a phone call

I need a plane ride

I need a sunburn

I need a raincoat

And I get no answers

And I don't get no change

It's raining in Baltimore, baby

But everything else is the same

There's things I remember and things I forget

I miss you I guess that I should

Three thousand five hundred miles away

But what would you change if you could?

I need a phone call Maybe I should buy a new car

I can always hear a freight train Baby, if I listen real hard

And I wish, I wish it was a small world

Because I'm lonely for the big towns

I'd like to hear a little guitar

I guess it's time to put the top down

I need a phone call

I need a raincoat

I really need a raincoat

I really really need a rain coat

I really really really need a rain coat

I really need a raincoat