Some days are just hard to get through. I think you know what I mean. They are gray, emotionally. Certain hard realities hit you straight between the eyes...your children will grow up and leave, you're going to lose your parents one day, other things you cherish are slipping through your fingers like sand on a beautiful summer day. Today was like that for me. If I were not a Christian, I would call what I am feeling a "midlife crisis." But I know I will live forever. Winter is just a ferocious, hateful foe. I fight a bitter war with it every year. I hate the barren trees, the gray skies, the temperatures so frigid you don't want to open your door. I hate everything about winter, except snow days with my kids home. I love to make hot chocolate, fire up the gas logs, watch the school closings rolling in on the local news. I like knowing they'll be excited when they finally wake up and I tell them they can just go on back to sleep. I love the way my house looks with a blanket of snow on the roof and landscaping. Our neighborhood becomes magical to me, the homes, already so cozy-looking to me, each one entirely of brick and each a bit different from the next, take on a story-book quality under all of that silent white. I also love winter Sunday afternoons with my husband at home watching his westerns while I intermittently remark on the poor quality of the acting. It's fun. It's comforting. I like coming home to a warm house after running errands and getting into and out of the car so many times I feel like a popsicle. It's nice to throw on sweatpants and curl up with a good book under a warm blanket. These little things are the bright spots in a bleak seasonal landscape. I keep telling myself I am going to find new things to do in the wintertime to stave off the horrible depression that always comes sailing in long about now. I get so tired of doing battle with it. There's got to be a way to build a little moat around my heart and keep that bloodsucker out. I will form a battle plan for this winter soon. It's just that it always seems to sneak up on me, lurking right out of sight behind Christmas, a wonderful time when I get to see everyone I love. Prayers welcomed!
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