Learning to Love Winter

I live in a four season climate, and it seems the older I get, the less I enjoy the Winter season. It’s cold, slushy, messy, and salty. It just doesn’t go well with my fastidious nature. Granted, I’m open-minded and can appreciate every season, it’s just that Winter doesn’t make feel good as it use to when I was a child. I know, the winters haven’t changed, I have. As a child, I just accepted Winter, played in the snow, built snowmen, snow forts, went sledding, associated it with Christmas and all the events that surround it, etc… But now I don’t do most of those things anymore, so Winter doesn’t have the same value as it used to. Maybe I should still go out in the snow and do those things. Why did I stop?

Being the optimist that I am, and trying to get that positive outlook, I was thinking of how Winter benefits me, and I finally came to a conclusion, one that made me feel good about winter again. Anytime I find myself liking or disliking one thing over another, I remind myself it is all relative. I should neither like or dislike something, but equally accept all. Given, I cannot deny that all things are unique in their own ways. I know that I should not value their differences one over the other. Everything creates one whole picture. I concluded that the coldness, the dreariness, the dryness of winter makes me all the more appreciate Spring and Summer. When Spring comes along, it’s all the more refreshing then if I were to live in a climate where it were Spring\Summer all year long. In a four season climate, Spring Fever is all the more powerful, more refreshing, more overcoming. There is contrast, which in turns creates this stronger distinct feeling. So, it’s back to the relativity again, except now, I learned to appreciate the relationship, and what it means. For example, If I were in an all year round spring environment, would I get spring fever? Would I love spring as much as I do now? Understanding this, I must love winter as well, for how it makes me feel about spring. It creates contrast, it makes spring beautiful. So it too, is beautiful for doing so. Both are equal, and part of one whole.

I should also explain, that I am not saying that Winter is bad nor ugly, and that this ugliness is what makes Spring look beautiful. On the contrary, I’m saying that both are beautifully unique in their own ways. And the contrast of their uniqueness’s compliment each other. When you love everything for what it is, and understand your relationship with everything, you know you are one with all, no distinctions, no beauty, no ugly, just being.

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