Gray Days

It's an overcast, gray day. Days like today convince me that I might even prefer them to sunshine.

These kinds of days make me want to stay in my pajamas and watch Jane Austen-esque movies like Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Because days like this are meant for Mr. Darcy's and Marianne's aren't they?

And I want to eat tomato-basil soup and listen to rain it my windows and maybe even take a nap. Because gray days feel like they're supposed to be restful and spent doing relaxing things or only things that you most enjoy.

Cloudy November days are some of my favorite. They feel quieter and make me feel quieter too. It's good for me to be quiet and take time for quietness. I can be loud and noisy and become overwhelmed by life's loudness and noise too. Maybe I feel like I have more room to think and feel acknowledge what is stirring in my heart because the gray sky just sets a different tone for me somehow.

Gray days make me want to be alone. Not the isolating kind of aloneness, but being by myself in search of some stillness and solitude. The good kind of aloneness that feels healing and good. That kind of aloneness brings me closer to the heart of Jesus.

I think about mom on gray days this time of year too. Probably because something about the gray sky around me feels somewhat sorrowful, and there is much sorrow in missing her. Missing what we never had, missing what we can never have. Those tears feel easier to cry these days. Probably because I've stopped fighting the fight of whether or not those tears needed to be cried. It's silly to fight tears - it's better to cry them and get them out. There is less held inside that way.

The gray day invites me to cry the tears I've been holding in about everything. About mom. About disappointment. About fears. About missing friends and friendships. About loss and haunting memories. About unmet longings and wishes and hopes that are still very much just wishes and hopes. I'm glad for the gray day though. I'm glad for the reminder and the invitation to get out the sadness instead of holding inside where it does nothing but eat at me.

Gray days invite me to be still and wait. To listen, to feel, to breathe, to hope.

Gray days make me want to write. Even if it's about nothing but a gray day.