I'll be making masala chai with onion fritters and it won't feel like a chore. I'll sip on my tea and devour the fritters as I close my eyes to truly take in how delicious they turned out to be while the fall of water droplets act as the perfect background score. I'll hum an old song or two but get lost in my thoughts somewhere along the way while looking out through my bedside window.

Next time the rain falls, I'll go outside on the balcony and get drenched. I'll put an old slipper at the opening of the drainage to clog the water and create a puddle. It sounds so childish but being a child felt the most peaceful once upon a time. I'll splash the water and dance in the rain and sit on the floor with my face facing the clouds and let rainwater directly embrace my facial features, flowing down through each crevice of my body, and feeling them equally. Rain makes no distinction. Rain has no bias. It won't see my scars and decide to not caress them. It won't see the parts of my body I am most insecure about and not try to be soaked by them. It will immediately notice the salty intruders amongst its kind but won't call them out.

Next time the rain falls, I'll write lines with the intention of writing for the love of it and not because it must sound poetic. I'll write lines that don't have a hidden, deeper meaning, that have no analogies, no rhyme, no structure, no flow. I'll write lines that follow no rules of literature and writing and I will call that art and I will call myself a writer. I will be in the depths of a writer's block and won't stare at a blinking cursor on a blank page. I'll write words. Words that don't even make sense together. Words that first come to my mind. Adjectives. Nouns. Pronouns. Adverbs. Whatever. And suddenly through the mess, I'll see myself. Just as jumbled, just as chaotic, just as flawed. It won't move anybody but it will move me. And I'll call myself a writer.

Next time the rain falls, I'll forgive. My current self. For making my younger self feel like I know any better now. For making her feel like I don't accept people who have shown they have all the desire to keep hurting me back into my life if they show even an ounce of kindness. I'll forgive. The man who broke my heart. There were signs from the beginning, all pointing towards the disaster this recipe was preparing but I still let him, I still let HIM break my heart, MY heart. I'll forgive myself. Again. For not being in the position to forgive my mother, for wanting to when she's good and regretting it when she's not. For being confused and thinking it must be because I am a bad daughter to begin with.

Next time the rain falls, I'll take up space. Space for sitting comfortably, instead of closing in my legs because that's more feminine. I'll take up space to let my head fall back as I laugh out loud. And as I laugh, I'll take up space to let it echo in the room without thinking how weird I must be sounding right now. Infact, if weird at all, let that be a reason people around me could have a reason to laugh as well. I'll take up space to express my mind and not worry about disappointing people who disappointed me. And when I get excited, I'll jump and scream, and hit that pillow who's holding on for dear life or maybe that poor fellow sitting next to me; perhaps that would be the beginning of a whole new story for me. I'll take up space to dare and to dream.

Next time the rain falls, I'd pursue my ambitions with an increased passion. I'll continue to want more of life, more from life but I'll also express gratitude for where life has gotten me so far. What befalls everyone, may that find me, too. Being safe from it all won't be a good story to tell. It'll no longer be a fictitious character in a fictitious story who gets to have her comeback arc, written by me. Instead, it'd be my younger self comforting my current self through the photo album, saying, "I knew I had faith on the right person's success!" And in that moment, failure won't feel as prickly and success, not so far fetched. Next time the rain falls, I won't anymore be waiting to start living my life from the next time the rain falls. The narrative shall change and there'll be a real person in real life, writing her own damn story.