I like the sound of rain on my metal roof. The sound of hail, however, is different. It sounds exactly like someone dumping a bucket of rocks on my roof. It’s loud. It’s noisy. It’s unsettling, especially when it happens in the dark as it did last night. Luckily, the encounter was brief. But for about ten minutes, it sounded as though my house was being torn down, bit by bit.

The aftermath of the storm this morning is cool weather and relatively clear skies. It’s nice outside. If I had a fire, I’d sit beside it. That’s what I’d do if I was camping. All I have now, however, are my porches and a jacket. That will have to do, and even with that I doubt I’ll sit outside. It’s more likely I’ll walk around and look at the flowers, and sniff the air, and think about what I’d like to do today. My yard is looking scruffy, but no one has cleared me to work with my line trimmer. So, I wait.

There’s a lot of waiting when you’re healing. A lot of enduring. The pain of the cut, the pain of the loss, the pain of the rebuff. All have to be felt. They’re wounds that tear the fabric of the skin and the fabric of the heart. Wounds that leave a mark and are tender to the touch, until one day they’re not, and they simply become reminders of your travels and travails. And there’s no schedule for your release. And sometimes I wonder if healing is merely a paradigm shift. The mind decides, I’m done. We’re healed. Time to move on. And you do. Move on.