I Didn’t Know Cold Until I Left Home

I spent most of my life in a place where winter was more of a suggestion than a commitment. I’m from a part of Australia where the sun doesn’t really set, it just clocks off late, like a coworker who refuses to go home. Winter meant slightly cooler evenings, maybe a hoodie if I was feeling dramatic, and the ocean still warm enough to take a dip in (for those brave enough anyway).

Then I moved to Canada, and winter arrived like a uni exam I had not studied for.

I thought I understood cold. I had Googled temperatures. I had bought a jacket that claimed it was “rated for Canadian winters,” which I now realize is something jackets say the way people say, “I’m fine.” Canadian winter is not just cold, it is intentional, and it asks you to be international just the same. It creeps into your bones, into your thoughts, into the way you plan your day. It forces rituals on you whether you want them or not.

Back home, my winter ritual was simple.

Long evenings outside, still chasing sunlight. BBQ smoke drifting lazily through the neighborhood. Complaining about the heat while secretly loving it. Life felt open, expansive, effortless. You didn’t plan around the weather, you lived alongside it (as long as you “slip, slop, slapped.” If you know, you know).

Here, my winter ritual begins with silence. Rain absorbs sound, and mornings feel hushed, like the world is holding its breath. I wake up and immediately check the weather app as if it some how might not be cold and rainy overnight. Then comes the layering, socks, thermals, sweaters; a ritual that feels less like fashion and more like armor. Coffee becomes sacred, hot chocolate too. So does staying inside. Every small decision feels deliberate. How long I can be out, what route has been shoveled, whether I’ve emotionally prepared myself for the wind.

But beneath the humor to cope, there’s homesickness.

There are moments when the cold hits just right and suddenly I miss everything. The relief of a rare cold breeze on a humid day. The way the air back home feels alive and familiar. The ease of being somewhere that shaped you without asking permission. Winter has a way of turning your thoughts inward, and when the days are short and the sun disappears early, memory fills the space it leaves behind.

I miss summer happening while it’s actually summer. I miss walking outside without thinking about it. I miss warmth that feels casual, not earned. Sometimes the homesickness arrives quietly, sneaking in while I’m cooking dinner or staring out of the window into the darkness. Other times it hits hard, with a sudden ache for a place and version of myself that still exists, just very far away.

Winter doesn’t distract you from these feelings. It gives them time.

And yet, somehow, winter has also given me something unexpected.

My rituals now include people in a way they didn’t before. Group dinners that last longer because no one wants to leave the warmth. Friends insisting I take an extra layer, or laughing gently when I underestimate the cold (again). Shared walks through the cold and dreary streets, all of us bundled up, moving slower, talking more. There’s something intimate about surviving winter together. It creates a closeness that feels rare. Something I never had back home.

I’ve learned that winter rituals aren’t just about survival, they’re about connection. Surviving together. Sitting around kitchen tables, hands wrapped around mugs, conversations stretching because the outside world demands you stay put. Checking in on one another, not out of politeness but necessity. In the cold, people look after each other differently.

At night, I light candles, part habit, part comfort, part attempt to recreate the glow of a sun that has clocked out far too early. I wrap myself in blankets and let myself miss home without trying to rush past it. I’m learning that homesickness isn’t something to fix. It’s proof that you’ve loved somewhere deeply.

But alongside that ache is gratitude.

Gratitude for new friends who have quietly become anchors. Gratitude for moments of warmth that feel earned. Laughter echoing in a small room, snow falling softly outside, the quiet pride of making it through another cold day. Winter has taught me patience. It has taught me how to sit with discomfort, how to appreciate small comforts, how to find warmth that isn’t guaranteed.

I still don’t love winter. I probably never will. But I respect it now. I understand that it’s shaping me in ways the sun never had to. It’s teaching me resilience, presence, and the strange beauty of slowing down.

This is my ritual of winter now: missing home, allowing the ache to exist, and building something new anyway. Finding warmth where I can, whether it’s in mugs, in rooms, in conversations, and in the people who remind me that even the coldest seasons are not endless. And that sometimes, growth happens quietly, under layers, waiting for the thaw.