fresh snow and soft silence

I awaken at 3:30 in the morning, and the world is silent. It is late, or extremely early depending on your point of view, but it’s usually a bit louder on the street outside. I donned a sweater and pulled on some boots with a feeling of excitement in my stomach. The weather had predicted snow, but it hasn’t snowed here in two years, so I knew better than to get my hopes up. I stepped out into the frigid January air and I find myself elated. It had snowed, and in fact was still snowing. A couple of inches at least. I breathe in deeply and try to catch hold of the magic that always comes with winter’s weather.

When I was a child, I’d spend hours before bed, pleading with the universe to send a snowstorm that would cancel school the next day. I hated it. I hated spending my entire day enclosed in concrete walls learning stuff I didn’t care about and would never use. I spent my days longing for better ones, to be free of the expectations that were put on me, ones that I never asked for. So, I sat awake and talked to the moon, to the stars, to the great unknown of the universe. Lo and behold, it was usually canceled as my hometown was always ill prepared for bad weather. I would watch the music channel while eating banana bread for breakfast, then I would read or sit outside. Sometimes I would swing, propelling myself higher and higher, wishing that my body could learn to take off and fly away. Of course, it never did, and I would return to school the next day. The following years happened exactly this way too, always wanting more and being too sad and depressed to do anything about it.

This is how I found myself, years and years later, 24 years old and hating my life, standing on the front porch of my mother’s house, and staring out at the snow covered roads. I had reached the point where I knew things had to change. I spent the majority of 2020 attempting to really work on myself, both mentally and physically. I made so much progress, but the hard work was only just beginning. I never hated myself for still living at home, but I was also was disappointed in myself for not having done more when I knew that I was capable of doing whatever I wanted. I decided that I had to do better, otherwise I wouldn’t survive. There was much to do, much to change. But for now, I sat and listened to the complete lack in the winter night.

The noises that usually existed harshly on asphalt landed softly on powdery white lanes. I hear nothing. It is soft. It is magical. It is loud in the way that I realize what I’ve known all along. In this moment, I exist alone, and the world only exists for me. I do nothing but breathe in and out and watch the flakes swirl around in the dim light across the way. I know, deep inside of me, that this is it. That all of the years that have passed me by, filled with chaos and heartbreak, were meant to lead me to peace. To hold my ground. To live simply and in nothingness. In the trees, in the oceans, in a van that allowed me to go off grid. I am destined for a life of doing things that bring me peace. Writing about the earth in all of her glory, drinking tea or coffee and have nobody disturb me. My mind was practically begging me to, I just couldn’t hear it. I had so often allowed myself and others to push boundaries I had set, always giving too much of me and never finding a balance. I will still give myself to others, but more importantly, I will give to myself. I wish to live slowly and softly. To do yoga at 10pm and then stay up stargazing. I vow to give myself freedom. I vow to give myself healing. To let my inner child know that it is okay. It is all okay. Life is long and hard and messy and beautiful all at once and bad things that happen out of your control do not need to be carried by you. It is too heavy. I will begin the way I always have: connecting with the universe and bringing forth things that make me happy, things that I deserve. My goal is to spend my days doing things that make me feel like freshly fallen snow does, whether I am in my hometown or hundreds of miles away, I will do things simply because I wish to.