Changes

Today I am holed up in my office. Music plays on the radio. Lamplight gives the room a cheery feel. A candle fragrances the air. Photos of family smile at me. It is a cozy place to hang when outside it is cold, gray, and snow flakes flutter to the ground.

I think this is a Landmark Year for me. It is the end of February. Tomorrow March begins. It is snowing outside, if only ineffectively. The temp outside is hovering at 32 and the snow mostly melts when it hits the ground. This is the best of both worlds. I see the loveliness of the snow, but there won't be any shoveling to do later. In February that is always good news, because by now, I've usually had my fill of shoveling.

So why is this a Landmark Year? Because even with the gray skies I am feeling very even-keeled about the weather. It hasn't always been so. In fact, I was a little afraid to say anything until I survived the month without losing my senses and collapsing into despair even if only for a moment. Winter tends to try my sense of optimism at least once. For proof, go back to 2010 and read this post. http://viewfromanemptynest-connie.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-days-view-is-just-plain-cloudy.html
But this year, so far, so good!

Change doesn't come easily to me. (I alluded to that in my last post!) After many years in a warm, sunny--let me repeat that--SUNNY climate I was surprised at how hard I found the initial impact of a northern winter. I had grown up in Pennsylvania, so I figured it wouldn't be that hard. I expected the lack of sun to be harder than the cold and it was, but even more than I was prepared for. After 5 years, I seemed to have turned the corner on that albatross.

There may be some simple reasons for this improved outlook. The first one is simply Time. I've had time to adjust.

I first noticed a change of attitude last Fall. As the leaves disappeared I didn't groan in anticipation of a long, cold winter. I was back to my childhood self of enjoying each season as it came. Fall, followed by the 'holiday season' of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, which leads into True Winter--That season that has few distractions, except, perhaps, Valentine's Day.

There was another aspect that may have helped my attitude. Larry travels extensively in the winter. The first few years we were here I told people if we had a snowstorm, Larry was in Minneapolis. Because he usually was! In fact I remember getting up one morning to see his tire tracks in the newly fallen snow in the driveway. It had snowed overnight, but he had left at 5AM for the airport...leaving me to clear the sidewalks, steps and driveway.

This year our first snow occured over Christmas...and he was here to clear it out! I liked that! Of course, he was gone every other time it snowed, but you win some, you lose some.

He was also around in January a little more than usual. So that means I wasn't alone perhaps as much. And best of all, we haven't been inundated with blizzards or heavy snowfalls.

Whatever the reasons, the truth is still good news. I made it through February without losing it. I know spring will get here someday, but I'm no longer silly enough to think the month of March has anything to do with that! If anything, March is one more month to get through cheerfully. And I'm pretty sure I can do that.

I'll just keep the lights on, the music playing and light another candle.