As I lay in my bed, trying to sleep, I heard a spattering of rain outside. I turned over, trying to hear it better. I had always loved rain at night.

‘Come on,’ I thought. ‘Become a huge, loud thunderstorm. Reflect my mood. Be a real-life symbol.’

The rain splashed lightly against my window and the wind whistled, but it did not escalate further.

Lately, I had been feeling less than human. It was hard for me to say just what was wrong. Everything was the same as always. The same people, classes, homework. Nothing had changed. But then, perhaps that in itself was the problem. Pinpointing my issue seemed impossible to me. My life wasn’t bad enough for me to call myself ‘depressed’ but I was never happy. I felt hollow, like something was missing. I couldn’t tell what was missing, though, and that lack of knowledge made me constantly unhappy.

So I then poured myself into little bits of everything, for short periods of time. Today I drew something wonderful, and tomorrow I would write my award-winning novel. Friday I would dance like nothing else. Saturday would be devoted to music: Flute, piano, iPods, rap, rock, blues, anything with a hot beat and a catchy tune. But nothing ever lasted. My life was on repeat. Every week was identical. My outlets came back to haunt me.

But I hadn’t exploded, at least not yet. I came home and cried almost daily, but I had yet to finally let everything out and just scream. I hadn’t thrown anything, or hit anyone. My sanity felt like it was ebbing slowly away, but I was physically unhurt.

And that’s when I realized that I was already just like the storm. The storm, the rain, the wind, they were all quiet. The rain painted my window with tears, the same way my eyes managed to produce them every evening. The wind was noisy, but it could not overpower the sound of the rain against my window. It didn’t scream. It didn’t break anything. But it was there, quietly making itself known to the world – to me.

So I realized as I lay there, trying to drift off to sleep, that there didn’t have to be a huge thunderstorm to reflect a type of sadness. The quiet misery I felt was embodied in that quiet rainstorm. I had found a real-life symbol, but somehow, I didn’t feel much better.