Wintering & Letting Go

FROM SUNSHINE TO SNOW

The winter, not a new feeling to me, but it became an unfamiliar one. Being from Florida for the last 12 years of my life, we barely qualified for sweater weather. This past November I moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey and all of the thoughts (or lack there of) of what winter was to me had drastically changed. 

Everyone's idea on wintering is uniquely theirs. To some, they hate that it's too cold for iced lattes, and to others they can't wait to burn their tongue. My experience is placed somewhere in the middle. Solitude mixed with the winter was a cocktail that I had to drink, night after night. 

At first I struggled with it, the change in location, the weather, shifting jobs, living alone, my apartment that looked like a cubicle for a life insurance clerk. In all of this I had realized the seasons are a constant reminder that life's cycles will always have death, birth, growth and maturity. I hadn't felt anything like this in Florida. 

I recognized I was feeling the same thing nature was experiencing. Change and death. I had thrown away the Stockholm syndrome that was keeping me in Florida. I had seen the death of a young version of myself that became outdated. From that point my mind became a blank white canvas. 

The winter birthed a new man, a new story, following new guides and new point of views. I had changed with the seasons, and I had never felt that connected to my surroundings before. As nature began to shift I realized so will I and for the first time I felt how intertwined we truly are to nature. I feel it is important to keep this connection going. Whether that's falling asleep watching the moon rise or waking up to an alarm of sunrise, the winter has brought me closer to nature and I am forever grateful.