My shoulders tightened as my arms drew up the blinds in my room, accidentally clunking over my rhinoceros-size stack of textbooks. There it was, mocking me as its blanket of wretched, finger-numbing poison tumbled from the sky. Ugh, my soul curled. Just the sight of winter’s dandruff was enough to make me enraged, especially when a stack of untamed homework took advantage of my newly freed schedule – brought by the dome of snow that trapped my poor car. To be quite honest, if there was a stronger word than “abhor” to describe my feelings towards winter, you best be sure it would have found its way here already.
My roommate and I like to dote on fall semesters as the better ones; spring is the one that offers soiled experiences instead. One of the biggest reasons why the spring semester feels like a drag is because of the nose-tingling weather that appears – seemingly out of nowhere sometimes. But when asked if I could travel anywhere in the world to experience Christmas, my mind immediately transports me to Switzerland, a country known for being quite freezing during this time of year. Therefore, the idea of me hating Kentucky’s similar winter expression could not hold any weight in my argument. So I guess I just realized that I don’t hate winter. I hate where I am in winter.
I remember my first Asbury Christmas. The first signs of snow pictured on Instagram story after Instagram story after – you get the point. And as they rejoiced for the coming season, all I wanted to do was pack my bags and never come back. “It’s nice that we have so many seasons, don’t you think?” my friend, who I believed at the time was much too innocent to digest how horrible the snow truly is, exclaimed. She looked out the window of the dorm room to fetch a glance at the petals of slimy, frozen, balled-up water residue. “I wish I could live somewhere with just fall, spring and summer,” I grumbled. “Winter gives me a headache.” I pushed aside my homework. My brain had been trying way too hard to hold on to dear sanity but finally gave in to the pressures of my severe senioritis symptoms.
For some reason, everything feels intensified during winter. Tasks that felt light and breezy become rhinoceroses on my shoulders. But when I was a child, there was no time like this season. Sledding with cheap plastic tub lids on the tiny hills that our front yards provided and making ice cream out of the snow – “Just add vanilla” was my mom’s go-to phrase for the recipe. I even remember the cold air as being more refreshing than summer’s lemonade. Winter was special and wonderful, and the joy of the season was intense, because everything during winter feels more intense, especially the good.
At some point while I weeded through my projects and papers and all the other begrudging to-dos, I started to realize that winter was tip-toeing away from me. I can’t remember the last time I actually went outside just to be a witness to its crystals that dropped from somewhere within the endless beyond. I haven’t knocked on my neighbor’s doors to ask if they wanted to glide down the blip of a hill in the front yard in years. And then it hit me. I’m graduating from university in less than four months. With a degree. And winter will have passed. My last winter where I had an assured two months off from productivity. My last winter where I could sit and think about what will happen in the future and who my adult self will become and what I want her to achieve. Because the clocks already started to tick faster, yet time stands still due to fright. Because when winter is over, life has to move on. There is no other choice. I hated winter because I was tired of my rhinoceros, but I needed to learn how to love it instead.
Winter will never be my favorite season. Sorry, but that’s reserved for fall. Yet, all these years I had placed an exorbitant amount of angst towards it since it was so close to the end-of-semester finish line. But now that I’ve reached the final round, I can only look back and remember obsessing over my impatience, which has only left half-baked, unsweetened and mushy memories. But here’s the good news: there are still plenty of winters left. I will not deny that I’ll always have to carry rhinoceroses around during winter time, because let’s face it, winter can still be a bleak and much too freezing time for cheery smiles; however, this does not mean exiling all the great things winter has to share. As my outdoor leadership class taught me: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” Winter does not have to equal suffering or just another thing to get through. So, I guess my friend was right all along; it is nice that we have so many seasons.
Photo courtesy of AU Strat Comm.
