No More Rain (In This Cloud)
My mom used to play this song for me all of the time when I was in sixth grade; mostly when she was cleaning the house because you know how black moms do.
I never understood the meaning behind the song “No More Rain (In This Cloud)” by Angie Stone until I became an adult. It hits different.
There’s moments in life that will bring you to your knees and feel like there’s no weathering the storm. Your thoughts tell you that sunshine is meant for others and darkness or despair is meant for you. This soulful ballad made me feel less alone at a time where I was broken: my job had beat me down, I wasn’t doing well in school due to distractions and I had been betrayed by someone who called himself wanting to date me seriously. Also, my Beetle had been impounded while I was searching for a new job.
Life beat the shit out of me. I was docked hours at my job because a higher up sexually harassed me about rumors that I had been hooking up with a coworker. While it was true, he had no right to ask me “Are you fucking N?” while I was on the clock. We are not friends. You are my supervisor. And to continually ask me was out of line. Needless to say, I took my frustrations to Facebook and that landed me in trouble. They cut me down to two days week without asking me why I was frustrated. Meanwhile, that asshole received a promotion. I did that schedule for three months before I came back from my 15 minute break and wrote my two weeks notice on a Starbucks napkin. Honestly, it felt liberating.
When someone has hurt you, it’s written on your face and it reads “Broken spirit, lost and confused. Empty, scared, used and abused…”
In the weeks following, the semester at school had ended and I found out I was placed on academic probation. Of course, I felt miserable because of that. But I knew the next semester, I could bring my grades up so it wasn’t that tragic. I just felt bad because I let social distractions get in my way. I was hanging out with people who weren’t in school so they had all of the time in the world to hang out, so the FOMO was real.
That same weekend, I decided to go out to Los Angeles to see a friend’s band play and distract myself further from my issues before I got saddled down with another job and semester — I came back to my car impounded. Here’s the kicker: it was impounded because of the situation with the aforementioned employer who cut my hours. I could barely afford gas driving from the East County to Downtown for the two days a week I was working so, replacing my oxygen sensor in my German car to get my smog check to finish my vehicle registration wasn’t high on my priority list. Life’s lessons don’t come cheap. It was a $1600 mistake because of the parking tickets I incurred from my late registration. My stepfather had to help bail me out because of course I was jobless and $400 over-drafted. Before you start, I paid him back within two months.
Not afraid because the seasons have changed. I’m gonna count my blessings and just follow the sun.
The one bright spot was when I landed a new job at a country club a week later. The universe doesn’t always come through when you want it to, but it comes through right on time. Remember when I said I was $400 over-drafted? Some random rich dude came into the spa area where I worked and put $400 in my freaking hand. I literally did nothing. I hadn’t even talked to the man nor told him my situation. Like Forrest Gump said, “My mama always told me that miracles happen every day. Some people don’t think so, but they do!”.
So you say you’re in your prime. Baby, don’t waste your time. Remember my love, it’s only a thin line.
My magic was short-lived because the very next week, the guy who I was hooking up with at work for over a year who conned me into thinking he could be more than a Peter Pan, hanging out in bars and scamming on girls in PB — cheated on me. His reason? Because, and these are his own words: “You’re not enough of a bitch for me. You’re too nice. I could never fall in love with someone like you.” I realized that I knew who he was and I let him off the hook. Bamboozled and tail tucked between my legs, I left his apartment licking my wounds. I cried of course on my way to work, but I’ve weathered worse. My own family has betrayed my trust and I was homeless as a nine year old child. That’s another story for another day. But if I could weather those things and the hellish events prior to this pig’s betrayal, I could surely get over him fucking another girl.
My sunshine came when I needed it to in a slightly different package than I had anticipated…