It snowed a ton this past week, and I am okay with that. I never counted myself much of a “winter person”. I don’t ski or snowboard or ice skate, I just shovel. Snowfall undoubtedly makes life more difficult. Enough of it forces one to readjust their typical daily routine with a certain amount of flexibility and intentionality. I used to think I hated it.
As I age, I become a little more like winter. This is the season when the natural world retreats, sinking back inside itself, gathering up all the strength it will need when the time comes to sprout new growth. If you frame it that way, I say I’m living right now in the winter season of my life. Catch me softening, growing quieter and more introspective, learning to crave solitude. I like cozy and comfortable, trading in my flip flops for wool socks, and finding comfort in admitting the truth that I’m just not the sunshiney gal I once was. To some, this might all sound kind of bleak and joyless, but I actually feel quite beautiful in the still. I so appreciate this space to retreat and nurture a version of self I was too distracted to dream of when I woke up every day to sunrays on my forehead.
We’re not for everyone, winter and me. But suit up for the adventure, and you might discover something raw and bewitching in us right now. We’re in-betweeners. Past the reckless abandon of summer, and not yet arrived at our fearless revival come spring. We are bare, for the moment. Bare but not dormant. We stand before you, vulnerable. Open to what comes next. In preparation for something stunning we are not quite ready to share yet. Stick around. Shed your preconceptions, accept us for where we are right now, because we have just as much to offer up in the now as we did in the before, and as we will in the bloom to come. Maybe snowfall makes life more arduous, but it also blankets our roots in something new and leaves our whole world more vibrant to look at. So, stick around, because winter belongs to the patient and the persistent, as well as those who love life enough to find joy in every single season.