You’re in eighth grade listening to your wacky science teacher lecture about cloud formations and weather patterns. It may be April, but this is the first time you’re actually paying attention and retaining some information that interests you for once. You perk up, feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed. Stratus, Cirrus, Cumulus, what have you. All of it is thrilling. You’re learning!

Not many lessons captivated me in school, but for some reason, the clouds did. You can go outside and look up and the sky is completely different than when you last saw it. Sure, it’s the same blue sky you’ve seen since you were a child, but it’s the clouds who paint it each day.

They’re just fluffy bois that float on by, constantly changing shape as they go, and don’t have a care in the world. They’re reinventing themselves, protecting us from the sun, and occasionally letting their baggage go through the process of rain, watering the plants on Earth so they can give us oxygen. Rinse, and repeat.

I found a lot of similarities between the clouds and I. Some days there’s a gloomy gray overcast, not a piece of blue sky in sight, some days the sun is shining and there aren’t any clouds at all, and some days it’s somewhere in between. All beautiful, but vastly different sights. Clouds give me comfort and help me understand that it’s okay if my best looks different each day.

The sun will still rise tomorrow even if it rains today, and that’s good enough for me.