Sandpaper Crayon

So it is 7:30pm on a random Monday evening and I am driving my two dogs (one is on so many drugs he is barely able to stand and the other is wearing a plastic shield to keep her from chewing on her bloody stump of a tail) down I-40. It is pouring rain and I am driving to North Raleigh to hand deliver some paperwork that I forgot to mail in (again). My gas light comes on (again) and I notice that there are two brand new wrecks on the other side of the road and I grumble to the dogs about sitting in traffic and the damn rain (keeping in mind that we are still in a severe drought) and how I am an idiot for not mailing this stuff in last week. In my head I am planning my next blog- a rant about my hellish week (I locked my autistic boy in a hot car and AAA had to come break him out- and that was one of the BETTER parts of my week!) and wondering if the bad news will ever stop coming...

Literally it came out of NOWHERE- one of the biggest and brightest rainbows I have seen in a long time just popped up in front of my car- almost as if it wanted me to follow it. I took the time to enjoy it for just a second before grabbing my cell phone to snap a pic- my mom will love it! So I took a few pics (before realizing that a state trooper was cruising in front of me- this is NOT the week to push my luck with the law) and veered off on an exit to buy some golden gas. I was disappointed that the gas station was on the wrong side of the road (how DARE they build a gas station on the non-rainbow side of the road!), but as I pumped the two gallons of gas I could afford, I noticed that the people around me were all looking to the sky. Then I noticed what I had been missing all along- the rain had stopped and I was parked directly in front of the OTHER side of the rainbow! It almost seemed that it was springing up from the gas station! Just as I grabbed my phone, an old biker dude kinda guy walked up beside me with his camera phone. "I'm bout to do the same thing." he said with a smile.

And I couldn't help it- I was smiling. I am angry and frustrated and really ticked off about pretty much everybody and everything right now, but I just stood in a gas station parking lot staring at the sky with a bunch of strangers and I smiled.

Rainbows mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and I know that it's nothing more than science to some (reflection and light and stuff), but to me it is one of the most beautiful natural occurrences imaginable. Even more than that, it's a promise. Believe what you want, but the rainbow reminds me that there's only one promise that won't be broken. And today that was the best reason I could think of to smile.