It’s raining. That might not seem like such a huge deal for most of the world, but here in Arizona rain is pretty exciting. We’re not used to this wet stuff, falling from the sky and making our plants grow without any effort on our part.

We usually have a nice big, rainy season in the early “fall” as the rest of the world knows it, or end of summer-ish here. We call it our monsoon season and yes, images of Jumanji do come to mind every time I say that, but even then we don’t get that much rain compared to some of the world.

This year I don’t think we even had a monsoon season. We just kept on going with our dry normality and it wasn’t until a few months later that we realized we were still dry. Now that it’s in the middle of the winter (very loose term there) we are finally having what seems to be our monsoon season. It’s been raining very frequently and usually on the most important days that we not have rain.

My son had a wedding here in December, thinking that it would be best to have it here in Arizona where it’s usually nice and dry instead of a cold winter state, like Washington, where his new wife is from. Unfortunately, the weather decided that that would be an excellent week to rain, especially on the day of the wedding.

We were able to move the reception inside, use clear umbrellas, and make it a very memorable day in spite of with the weather. Things do look better in the rain anyway, the photographer told us. I know this is true for me because whenever I used to go look at houses on rainy days, I wanted to buy every one of them.

One thing about having a lot of rain in Arizona is that we don’t really know what to do with it at times. Most states with extreme weather have things in the road to help you see the lines when there’s weather like snow or rain or sleet, or things that I don’t even know about due to living in Arizona, but in Arizona, we just have the white lines painted on the road and figure that’s gonna be good enough. Typically, that is ust fine…unless its raining.

Since it is now dark outside in the mornings when I’m driving to work, it is really hard to see the lines when the road is covered with water. I find myself squinting and leaning forwaed like an old lady, trying to make out any sense of a line or borders of the lane which I’m supposed to stay. If my son is in the car, he is really good at pointing out anytime I stray or basically drive in the completely wrong lane. Unfortunately he’s not always in the car with me or maybe that’s fortunately. It depends really.

Another issue I’m having is that the car which I love is in the shop due to a little fender bender that happened on that said rainy wedding day. It just added to the overall memorability of that day. It wasn’t a bad fender, bender and it wasn’t my daughters fault, the one who was driving, But it does have to go to the shop for a few days. In the meantime, I am blessed enough to have a second car, which is lovingly, called the kids car or whoever happens to be able to drive the car. I never drive this car and I don’t maintain it. I just pay the insurance and at times the kids pay me back. Their job to keep the oil change the tires changed which of wipers etc. etc. etc. Right now there’s no one at my house we can drive this car so it’s fully open and available for me to drive while my car is in the shop. I say this is a blessing because it says because of money on a rental car, which I didn’t want to pay for in my insurance monthly because I’m cheap. But I digress…

I’m blessed to have this car to drive, but the problem is that it’s terrible! It’s a rickety little thing with wipers that like to leave a big blurry spot right where my eyes look out through that front windshield. Not the most helpful thing in the world.

As I was driving to work trying to see the road in this swirling water that’s covering the road, the lights flashing off of it from all the passing cars and my general aged eyesight, it brought to mind one of my students. This is the kid I may, or may not have referred to before is having some difficulty with thinking due to head injuries in the past. I love this kid because he’s a really great kid. He tries really really hard which is something I can’t say for the majority of the kids in junior high.

Yesterday when I got to school, he came up to me and started talking to me about something that happened over the weekend. Now we talk now and then we have a good relationship, but I could tell that this was something that he really needed to share with somebody so of course, I sat down and listened and gave him my full attention. He proceeded to tell me about a friend that he had had for years and years, who had tried to get him to start vaping. He told me how he had shut that down quickly, and how he had told his friend that he cared about him and wanted to be his friend but if he was going to be pushing things on him like vaping or drugs or alcohol or anything in that category but he would not be his friend anymore. He went beyond this and said not only did he do that, but he put a message out on his own little social networking arena a message to all his friends. He cared about his friends, but if any of his friends wanted to try and propose or push something that he felt, was inappropriate or damaging to him, but he would choose to not be their friend.

Visions of Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter flash into my mind, and I thought about how incredibly brave this was for this young boy to do. I thought about how he struggles to read, sometimes to write and to pay attention, but he was crystal clear when he told me about his dedication to doing what he thinks is right and keeping his body healthy.

He’s still going dirtbike and do some crazy things that kids do where he might get hurt. And some of that may be risky for sure, but he’s decided that those things are more worthy of a pastimes than putting things in his body that he knows for sure is going to hurt him.

I’m just so impressed with his young man and I am impressed with his parents and the way that he has been taught in his life. It’s so crucial for us to teach our kids young to decide who they want to be and what they want to do and what they want to avoid in their lives. I know when I was a young kid that counsel was pushed a lot at church and at home; to decide in advance.

Don’t wait until the moment that crucial decision needs to be made to make that decision.

Don’t wait until someone offers you something you know harm your body to decide if you want to do it or not.

Decide when you’re young and get that ingrained in you. Make it part of who you are so that you never have to make those hard choices. They’ve already been made, and you can just go through and deal with the things that you don’t have as much control over.

This young man was such a good example to me, and made me think about my parenting again. I thought about the choices that I decided when I was young kid that I stuck to. I realed it’s not too late for me to decide about things coming up because we always have choices to make. We always have to plan ahead and try and prepare our best for what is coming because nobody’s got a free ride in this life and nobody gets to skirt through without any challenges or questions or problems.

I think it’s awesome how much I learn from these young people that I am blessed to work with. I truly am living a blessed life.

Because I said so.