Waiting for the Summer

Vast grayness poisoned my life for weeks. I wished someone could hold out their hand and pull me out of it for I sank in that swamp up to my head. Flu knocked down the whole family. Trapped inside the house for days, when we finally got out we had to endure a weather more severe than I could recall ever dealing with. Freezing rain, icy winds and a hostile takeover of all the walking space by slush and dirt. I felt soaked with gray in and out. Sitting on a coughing bus on my way to work, looking at the dirty gray sky through the dirty window I was thinking: is it possible to feel worse than I do now, numbed by grayness, the prisoner of winter...

And then fresh snow fell and covered everything with purest whiteness. The sun came out after days of cowardly hiding and the sky dressed up in bright winter blue. Not a hint of gray anywhere outside, its heavy weight finally lifted off my heart as well.

Why, oh why can’t we withstand external circumstances? Why can’t we be these weightless, free-spirited creatures that thrive in any weather, climate, condition? Why do we let misery press us down till we give up resistance and let it drag us on for days?

I was thinking what I can do to fill harsh winter days with some light and warmth to defrost my heart, to make hope and anticipation spring back up. I do rely on books to help me read the winter away, to plunge me in the sweet oblivion till I’m ready to lift my eyes from the comforting lines and witness life again. But mostly it’s about waiting, the tense process of anticipating the future by half-ignoring the present. These days will pass and I won’t look back, I won’t feel sorry for this chunk of my life to be over, for wasting it on waiting and wishing these days away. And some day I might move to a place where it’s never ever cold: eternal summer with eternal happiness.