It was a less than stellar start to the day. Barely able to move out of the bed, just dragging, but it was Friday a pay day, surely this day can’t be that bad. So I get on the good foot and head out the door, up the steps when half way up I see all manner of NASTINESS on the stairs.  The nastiness could have only come from a woman and the sight of such made me want to cut a b**ch.  What kind of nasty, trifling woman would toss such a thing outside?.  I soon rationalized that said woman maybe wasn’t nasty, but was trifling enough to leave her trash outside for cats to bust open and drag the nastiness down the steps.  So I got over it.  The work day was the same as always, full of interruptions, with spurts of work in between.  Needless to say the day could not end fast enough.  At the moment I thought I was free for the weekend someone shows up at my desk for a report. I obliged, then heard the thunder, heard/felt a power surge and listened to my UPS start beeping before the rain came crashing down on the roof.   I hung around a bit to wait on the rain to slack up and finally headed out, relieved of the longest short week in history, relieved of frustration and simply relieved that it was all over.  Then a curious thing happened.

As is often the case in Atlanta, it wasn’t raining everywhere. To my left the sun was coming out, to my right it was raining. I started getting excited. I knew what was about to happen and I started looking around, trying not to wreck, that’s all I needed after a day and a week like this one. Then I saw it, faint but it was there. I continued my commute toward home then made a stop at Walgreens. At the check-out I see one of the store associates at the door saying to everybody “hey you want to see something? Look!” I could tell by that look he had on his face that he was seeing what I saw earlier, except this time it was clear. He saw a rainbow.

Now you may be thinking, “all that build-up for a rainbow.” Yes a rainbow.  After a week filled with a crazy amount of work, emotional highs and lows, as well as experiencing utter disgust at the end of the work week, looking for and being blessed with that rainbow made me know for sure that everything was going to be alright. When I think of rainbows I don’t think of pots of gold I think about the promise of something new and beautiful. When I see rainbows I don’t think about leprechauns I think about the calm and the freshness that comes after the storm.  When I see a rainbow it quite simply makes me smile.

I know you don’t see rainbows every day.  In fact for years and years I didn’t see any and I finally figured out that I never saw them because I wasn’t looking.  Getting caught up in stuff and folks and foolishness, makes it easy to miss the rainbows – the things that are simple and beautiful and exist in the universe with us every single day. 

As long as you’re living, there’s always going to be STUFF, however as you simplify and are able to determine those things that are most important to you those rainbows start to appear.

Did you see your rainbow today?