---
date: 2025-03-04 13:00:00
title: Walking Out Into the Rain (JustWriteLol part 1)
summary: Being unprepared for a mundane event made me think a little too much. A start to what I hope to be a series of shorter posts.
---

Tuesday, March 4, 2025\
1:45 PM

I was standing in the entrance lobby of my university's computer science building. When I walked inside, I was immediately blindsided by the
torrent of rain assaulting the pavement outside the front doors. I leaned against a wall off to the side and pulled out my phone: It's around 40
degrees, feels-like 35, which hopefully meant that my thick black-and-white sweater would keep me warm enough outside.

The bigger problem is that I don't have a coat. Or an umbrella. Or anything at all that could keep me dry. Even my backpack, holding within
its modest 13-liter capacity everything I needed (and a bunch of things I didn't) for my school day... is not really known to be waterproof.
Holding it above my head like a sacrificial offering might keep my head dry, but I couldn't say the same about everything *else* in the bag.

I guess this is why most people check the forecast before they leave for their daily errands: so they don't feel incredibly stupid when
Mother Nature desides to pull a prank on them.

My weather app says the rain won't cease until at least another hour, so unless I want to stay trapped in this building for the next hour waiting
for the rain to die down... I need to just say screw it and walk out the front doors. So, after putting my phone back in my back pocket, 
I pushed a door open and stepped out into the outdoors.

Immediately I felt the slight chill in the air. Strangely, it felt less oppressive now than it did when I left this morning. Then, there was so much
wind constantly battering me, making me stop in my tracks halfway to the bus stop outside my apartment as I turned the thought of going back and
grabbing my coat over in my head. I decided I didn't want to risk being even later to class by missing the bus, so I huffed it regardless of the cold.

In hindsight, that unrelenting wind was probably the opening act to the torrent I'm stuck in the middle of now &mdash; something about the cold front
moving in or whatever. Yet somehow, the main event is less distressing than I thought it would be. I barely feel the rain on my body, likely thanks
to my sweater taking the brunt of the attack. Even when the raindrops hit the top of my head, they feel... pleasant? I joked with myself before
opening the doors that "at least I'll get a little shower from this", but I didn't expect it to actually feel like that.

I took a path down some (slightly precarious) sidewalk steps and put myself on the main road of campus, thankfully closed off from most motor-traffic
since this fall. I picked up the pace a little bit, jogging lightly across the street, but I didn't feel a big sense of urgency to get out of the rain.
I expected to be walking into Poseidon's hell-pit, but I actually feel like I'm in a gentle waterfall. I think to myself "This is fine" but I'm
not sarcastic about it. I genuinely feel fine. I feel great. A little refresher in a day full of underlying stress and worry.

I eventually walked down the road to the school library, which houses a cafe in the lowest floor. And it is here where I am writing this very post.

---

I'm tempted to slightly lampshade this next section, but I think for vibes' sake I'm not going to.

That brief little experience of fearing the
consequences of my actions and then realizing that the outcome is a lot more pleasurable than I thought it would be... kinda sums up a lot of
my experiences trying new things and becoming an adult. I have so much anxiety about messing things up: friendships, relationships, school,
projects, even cooking and cleaning. I feel so much pressure to be a perfectly functioning person that when I don't live up to that expectation, I
often shut down. Especially since I don't really know how to balance work and productivity vs rest and relaxation, it feels like my body and mind
schedule maintenance randomly no matter what I need to be doing. Hell, you could consider *this* to be unscheduled maintenance since I originally
intended to work on homework until my next scheduled event for today.

But oftentimes, all of this anxiety is solely based on worst-case predictions that aren't likely to come true. If I actually step out of my comfort
zone and actually *do the thing*, I often find that the results fare far better than I feared. I walk out into the rain without a coat, and I
actually end up feeling comforted by the "little shower". I tell my friend something I fear will make them upset, and instead they react understandingly
and positively. I try a new concoction in the kitchen in a desparate attempt to feed myself, and it actually tastes pretty good and gives me enough
energy to stay productive for the rest of the day.

I'm so scared to do anything that could be bad that I oftentimes miss out on the good things that come from stepping out and being an adult.
I think that's the big reason I feel so mentally "stuck" right now: I'm too afraid to actually step outside my known comfort junk-routines and
actually make decisions for myself.

I think I'm finally at a place mentally where I can start rectifying that.

---

This post should hopefully be the start of a new series of shorter posts about random things. They'll come out every week, starting today.

One of them may be about the Gunsmith system in recent Call of Duty games. Another one may be about my misadventures with Docker. I don't really
know what I'll write, but I'll write *something*. I just need to write. Lol.

Goodnight everypony