Having lived in Ohio for all fifteen years of my life, I’m no stranger to a whole assortment of weather. Mother Nature isn’t exactly pleasant to the area, and it goes from eighties to forties in two days during the fall and spring. And during summer and winter, you’re burning and freezing, respectively. But the part I grew to love was the lightning. It was the world being blown apart and thrown together again in the space of a second. The way that, if only for a moment, the street I lived on would be thrown into light beyond comprehension, a brightness that made houses seem unsteady and  trees seem frail. I love storms, and I love standing in the middle of pouring rain, with lightning flashing all around me. And my friends and family say I’m crazy, and make me come inside, but they don’t see the magic. The beauty of water blurring eyesight, and the warmth that doesn’t come from the lightning strikes, but from somewhere inside me that is foreign yet familiar. There will come a time when I tire of rain soaked hair and I will not see thunder as a warning of beauty to come, but as a threat of danger. Or, that’s what they say. But me? I want to take my last breath sopping wet and with my eyes alive with lightning.