The only time I really like winter is before it actually gets here

I wish someone would remind me of this feeling next April.  By then I’ll probably be ready for another change.  I’ll be tired of putting on fifteen layers of fleece before I go outside, tired of wearing boots and stockings, tired of taking a coat to the bar, tired of shivering while I dress every morning, tired of scraping ice off my car, tired of not being able to feel my fingers, and tired of stepping in icy puddles with just a thin pair of flats on my feet.  By next April, I’ll be sick and tired of winter again.

This is what happens to me every year.  I have a love-hate relationship with winter, sortof like with alcohol or boys or McDonald’s or any of those things you think will never come back to bite you in the ass but then always do.  It seems that when I’m removed from winter, I always forget how much pain it really causes me.  I always hype winter really hard around early October, and then when it gets here, I’m just like, “HIBERNATE!”  And then I curl up in my fleece robe under a few blankets, with my rice bag and the Anne of Green Gables movies, not to emerge until June.

But it’s the idea of winter that gets me every time – the early autumn crispness that hints at excitement and hot cocoa and knee socks but fails to mention the early morning commute to work when you have to alternate driving with one hand and sitting on the other for a full 15 minutes until the car warms up.  Fall fails to mention numb toes and black ice and heating bills, because fall is like the Lifetime husband who seems utterly perfect for about a month, then murders you in an icy rampage called the “Polar Vortex.”

At the end of a hot and uninhabitable summer, fall makes winter seem like such a welcome change.  By early September, I get tired of oppressive heat and beating sun and sweating all the time.  I get tired of humidity, not being able to breathe when I walk outside, and sweating all the time.  I get tired of lying flat on the bed trying to get air to as much square footage of skin as possible, sleeping with fans, taking cold showers, and sweating all the time.  That’s when fall strikes, with its cool air and sweaters and tea, and talks me into looking forward to winter.  And I always oblige.  It’s actually quite easy to look forward to a night out when you don’t feel the hangover yet.

This is the time of year when I really start to miss winter, and just like any boy who ever broke my heart, I only remember the good stuff when it’s gone.  I miss scarves, boots, knit hats, mittens, and layering.  I miss candles and fires, fluffy horses, and dogs curled up like arctic foxes.   I miss the crisp feeling of frozen air that turns breath to ice when you walk out the door, and that gradual feeling of bliss that washes over you when you walk into a warm house after being outside in freezing wind.  I miss frosty windows, rosy cheeks, and how snuggling into fresh socks that have been hanging by the fire can warm your whole body.

But the thing I miss most of all is hunkering.  My dad used to call them windy-cozy nights – those nights when the wind was blowing shrill and cold outside the house, and I was snug tightly inside my bed in flannel pajamas with a dog at my feet.  It’s something you can’t do in the summer, unless you want to sweat to death, but I have trouble sleeping in tepid air without blankets.  When I was in college, the first month in the dorms was always unbearably hot, and I used to wake up with just my feet under the covers, as if I’d made a desperate attempt in the middle of the night to have some part of my body safely snuggled.  But winter is the only time you can properly hunker.  I love curling up warmly under several blankets, safely guarded from the icy temperatures outdoors that might whisper at the windows but can never reach me.

I really can’t wait for winter.