Dancing in the Eye of the Storm

I used to think strength meant control.

Control over my plans, my relationships, my carefully color-coded calendar. I believed that as long as I managed every variable, I could protect myself from the storm.

Then the storm came anyway.

It was a Tuesday when everything unraveled. The kind of gray-skied morning where you already sense something is off. I was on my way to a job I didn’t love but convinced myself I needed. Coffee in hand, I was halfway across the crosswalk when my phone buzzed.

“We’re downsizing. Your position has been eliminated.”

Ten words. That’s all it took.

I remember standing there, blinking, heart sinking in my chest as the city moved around me. Cars honked. People rushed past. But I was frozen in place, like a scene left behind in a film reel.

It wasn’t just the job. A week before, my long-term boyfriend had ended things, saying we were “going in different directions.” And my rent had just gone up. Life, it seemed, had decided to flip the table I’d so carefully set.

I spent the next few days under a blanket on my couch, binge-watching shows I barely processed, eating dry cereal out of the box, and scrolling endlessly — looking for something, anything, to distract me from the growing emptiness inside.

Then came the storm.

A real one this time. Late Thursday night, thunder cracked so loud it shook my apartment windows. I lay in bed listening to the rain batter the city, the wind howling like it had something to prove. I thought, Well, at least now the outside matches the inside.

And then — I did something strange.

I got up.

I grabbed my keys, threw on a sweatshirt, and walked barefoot into the storm.

I didn’t know why. I just needed to feel something other than powerless.

The streets were nearly empty, slick with rain, city lights reflecting in puddles like melted gold. I walked until I was soaked through, then stood still in the middle of the road, letting the rain plaster my hair to my face.

And then — I danced.

Not gracefully. Not like I had any rhythm or plan. I just moved. I twirled with my arms stretched wide, feet splashing through puddles, eyes closed against the rain. I laughed — really laughed — for the first time in weeks.

Something broke open inside me, but it wasn’t pain. It was release.

In that moment, I realized I didn’t need to control the storm. I just needed to stop fighting it. There’s a strange power in surrender — not giving up, but giving in. Trusting that chaos doesn’t mean the end, but the beginning of something new.

I danced until I couldn’t feel the cold. Until my chest felt light. Until I remembered I was still here.




The storm passed, as storms do.

But I wasn’t the same.

The next morning, I made coffee and opened my laptop. Not to scroll, but to start. I dusted off an old file — a novel I’d started years ago and abandoned when life got “too busy.” I wrote. Every day. With no guarantee it would lead anywhere. But it felt like building a lighthouse, one word at a time.

I also started applying to jobs — not ones I thought I should take, but ones that lit a fire in my gut. I took up yoga. Volunteered at the animal shelter. Said “yes” to more things that scared me.

Not every day was triumphant. Some days, I still sat in the dark and cried. But I stopped measuring my worth by how well I held things together. I measured it by how often I showed up — rain or shine.

And eventually, things shifted.

I got a job at a nonprofit that aligned with my values. I self-published my novel — it didn’t top charts, but readers wrote to say it moved them. I made new friends, deeper connections. I learned to live from a place of curiosity, not fear.

I began to see storms not as punishments, but as invitations — to let go, to grow, to find what truly matters.




Now, whenever life shakes again — and it always does — I go back to that moment. That night in the rain. That strange, beautiful dance in the eye of the storm.

Because in the chaos, I found clarity.

In the uncertainty, I found myself.

And in the mess, I learned to move.