Posts tagged with "winter"

finishing the game

It’s been an aim­less win­ter. Some days full of mean­ing, oth­ers pass­ing with­out so much as a moment worth remem­ber­ing. I’ve learned to cher­ish every storm cause each one could be your last. Who knows when you’ll get to walk on trails cut through tan­gled branch­es with the snow as wet and thick and heavy as this again?

long driveway with snow

The hol­i­days snuck up on me. I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out where all the time has gone and how best to use what’s left. The only dec­o­rat­ing I’ve done for the sea­son is a real pine wreath (gen­er­ous­ly giv­en to me by Steph) hung on the office door. A small act that does­n’t seem like much com­pared to the glo­ri­ous ceil­ing-scrap­ing trees in the hous­es of my friends and neigh­bours, but cer­tain­ly more than I’ve done in the recent years. It’s an easy con­ces­sion to make against my grow­ing dis­taste for the com­mer­cial­ized Christmas cul­ture when my room is filled with the scent of sap, scat­tered pine nee­dles, and oth­er reminders of life.

car-in-snow

The ever-faith­ful steed.

My exis­tence is defined by what I have left to do, and the list grows ever short­er. I live week-by-week, through cycles of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and play, try­ing to meet each need in turn. It’s always a del­i­cate bal­ance to be man­ag­ing when so much in life is out of your con­trol.

As for the short term, I’m off to Shirley’s for Christmas and my annu­al dose of fam­i­ly. It’ll be a com­plete break from my reg­u­lar life of sin­gle-serv­ing meals and nev­er being around more than one per­son at a time. I imag­ine we’ll spend most of the days eat­ing fin­ger foods and watch­ing real­i­ty TV among the ram­bunc­tious flus­ter of her kids. I always look for­ward to see­ing how they’re car­ry­ing their grown-up voic­es and how their styles have changed.

hot chocolate

This is the time of year I’m most scared of being left with­out plans1, but recent­ly I haven’t had enough time alone. It’s left me feel­ing numb and tired and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

Friends still make the best dis­trac­tions. It’s easy to hide from any­thing when you’re shar­ing a blan­ket and some ear­ly episodes of Trailer Park Boys.

  1. Also why I usu­al­ly make a trip to Toronto. [↩]

creature comforts

Thank you win­ter for mak­ing my cats super cud­dly and slow-falling snow and the chance to wear new cardi­gan-dress shirt com­bos. You are total­ly worth the has­sle of hav­ing to warm up my car (for now). It’s because of you that I learn how trust is found in the gen­tle coo­ing of girls who fall asleep on your shoul­der.

Mornings are spent upstairs in the break­fast nook, now that I have work I can get done on my MacBook Pro. To be bathed in the cool sun­light reflect­ing off the snow was a change of pace I nev­er knew I need­ed.

birthday brunch

Jesse’s birth­day brunch at the Lieutenant’s Pump.

I’ve been liv­ing with­out any sort of sched­ule. It’s nice to be able to make my own hours cause I’m far more pro­duc­tive at night, but it also makes my life free of the struc­ture that keeps me paced and bal­anced. The only rea­son I have to keep any sort of reg­u­lar sleep­ing pat­tern is so I can be awake when my friends are.

Still, I tend to stay up past the point of exhaus­tion so I don’t get stuck in an end­less cycle of thought when try­ing to fall asleep. Otherwise, the cider always helps.

sneaky cat

Soon, hunger will over­take the fear of pun­ish­ment.

It’s one of those weeks where I’m feel­ing antsy cause I don’t know when I’m see­ing Lisa next and I haven’t heard from her in a while. I don’t pur­sue the issue cause she has her own life, and I have so much to do that it works out any­way, but that does­n’t make me miss her any less. Our time is spe­cial cause there are so many things I share only with her, our exclu­sive lit­tle club for Breaking Bad, cat walks, and super hot­ties.

It feels like I only talk about my friends late­ly. Probably cause that’s what my life is filled with now. They’re the good that’s come out of the bad, the ones who picked up the ball when oth­ers let it drop. They val­i­date me and notice what I wear and lis­ten to me cause they believe what I’m say­ing mat­ters. And at the very least, they’re a chance for me to care about some­one else.

makeshift wings

I’m ready for the win­ter. To be reborn with the first snow­fall that cov­ers the grass, awash in muf­fled seren­i­ty.

Time is mea­sured in weeks, not by the cycle of day and night, and this makes every­thing pass at a blis­ter­ing pace. The good weeks involve bacon break­fasts and peo­ple bring­ing me food and new projects and Magic nights. The bad ones involve bat­tles with my old arch neme­sis, acne, and his side-kick, scar­ring-on-my-fuck­ing-nose.

I’ve been deal­ing with this over­whelm­ing sense that any­thing can change. So much has left me feel­ing like there’s no cer­tain­ty any­more. Maybe that’s why I’ve stopped dream­ing. I have no idea what to expect from the future, and I don’t know if that scares me or gives me hope.

To stop myself from think­ing about it too much, I dis­tract with all the right things and few of the wrong ones. It’s a frag­ile form of sta­bil­i­ty. Some days, the strings, they don’t do enough.

hope springs eternal

I awoke after five min­utes — or five sec­onds — to a changed world. For a moment, I was free of feeling…love, hate, jeal­ousy. And it all felt like hap­pi­ness.

—Maurice Bendrix, The End of the Affair

a fresh start

A fog hangs low in the streets, illu­mi­nat­ed by the indi­rect rays of an unrisen sun, leav­ing every­thing was awash in grey instead of white.

The sea­sons are chang­ing. Winter is offi­cial­ly over. It nev­er recov­ers from a day like this, when the inevitabil­i­ty of spring can be felt on your skin, as tan­gi­ble as any snowflake or rain­drop. This is when I can look for­ward to sleep­ing with the win­dows open again, a rit­u­al made only sweet­er by it’s ephemer­al­i­ty.

And with that moist smell heavy in the air, I for­get all else.

this is interlude

I was­n’t ready for the snow. I pic­tured myself at home with noth­ing bet­ter to do than sleep in as it was falling, but instead I’m too busy to enjoy it. Now there’s noth­ing left of the snow that has fall­en, cause fate seems to be con­spir­ing with the weath­er to make this Christmas any­thing but white.

Unfortunately, this is when I need to be buried under snow. I’m con­vinced the win­ter will wash every­thing away, and I’ll emerge clean again.

boy plays with man

I don’t know what to do with myself late­ly. Ever since Will was born, catch-up time with ____ has been a call he gives me every now and then between meth­ods of pub­lic trans­porta­tion as he makes his way home from work. I just want to talk to some­one and have their undi­vid­ed atten­tion, cause it’s the old habits I miss the most, the late nights when you’d rather stay in some­one’s com­pa­ny than sleep. But the only peo­ple who under­stand are also the peo­ple with their own lives, and too often I’m left to my own devices.

As a result, I’ve been feel­ing vul­ner­a­ble. I hold myself back from reach­ing out to the wrong arms, the ones who touch my face and drag their nails across my skin, the ones with famil­iar smells and com­fort­ing weak­ness­es, the ones who appre­ci­ate the things I want to be appre­ci­at­ed for, but none of whom can give me what I need.

pictionary

Dennis’s socks.

I’m sure I’d feel as lone­ly as ever if I was­n’t so over-stim­u­lat­ed and ready to be by myself for a while. This prob­a­bly won’t hap­pen until some point dur­ing the hol­i­days, and even then, I had plans on catch­ing up on per­son­al projects and chores I can only bring myself to do once a year1. Maybe this is adults mean when talk about how time pass­es more quick­ly when you’re old­er.

I’m in between places now, unsure of where I am or where I’m head­ed. But at the very least, I know what I’ve been through and what’s behind me.

  1. i.e. Cleaning the floor­boards and walls of the house. [↩]