As I sit in my parked car outside the grocery store where I just grabbed a cup of Starbucks to fuel my writing, the rain pounds my windshield, coming down in sheets with such force the car is shaking. It’s the kind of rain where it blurs the driver’s view of the road, and so I’ve chosen to sit and write, giving the storm time to die down before I go pick the kids up from their grandma’s house. 

We shot a promo video for This Is My Brave this morning and I keep playing and replaying the cast interviews over in my head, hoping we got all the soundbites we needed and feeling like I may have left something out by accident during my interview. There is so much to say about mental illness and what needs to change that sometimes I’m at a loss for words at the most critical moments.

What I do know is that we’ve gathered an incredible group of brave and creative individuals who are going to stand up on that stage on May 18th to share a piece of themselves which they may or may not have revealed before. Through song, poetry, and personal narrative, our cast members will demonstrate their own experience with mental illness in order to show others that there is hope in recovery. We believe the audience will walk away with a new, more positive understanding of mental health disorders. They’ll see that the people who suffer from them are people like everyone else. We hope that by being vulnerable and talking openly, we’ll inspire others to do the same so that people everywhere will have a better understanding of mental illness and together we can silence the stigma.

And as the rain continues to pelt my windshield, softer now than before, I am reminded that the storm doesn’t go on forever. There is beauty in the raindrops that fall like the rushing tears from a depression once lived through. I remember that if we are patient, we will eventually find the calm after the storm. It’s only then we’ll be able to look back at the heartache and pain marvel at how we made it through to see the rainbow in front of us.