It's Winter

I know it’s winter because I look for meaning in everything. Until my brain stem hurts and I get thirsty.

I can tell it’s winter because my feet are cold. I’m weepy and I stand in the middle of the living room looking at the coffee table laden with books and magazines and candles with waxless corners and blackened rims.

Or I stare at the vitamins in the kitchen and wonder and fret over if I should read, or write a letter to my boyfriend in New Jersey to maybe apologize for my being over emotional during our last chat session earlier that day – if I was over emotional.

I know it’s winter because I’m inside a lot. Not inside my apartment, but ‘inside.’ Inside my brain, my heart, my fears, my hurt.

Winter Solstice is approaching. Winter Solstice is like watching actors being rewound on a screen. Only it’s me – all out there living my life, and then BAM! Rewind! And all of me that was previously unraveled gathers up tight – being called home for a rough winter.

I know it’s winter because my throat hurts – and not because I have Strep or tonsillitis – but because I’m holding my breath. Holding myself in tight from the cold.

I feel haunted in the winter.

I’m slower.

Less sure of myself.

Less positive.

You know how in movies, when the two people get trapped behind a rock slide cave-in and they’re running out of oxygen – all sweaty, sleepy and scared? And they breathe slow and shallow?

Yeah?

That’s me.

In the winter.

When it’s 8:30 at night and it’s black outside, and the wind whines and the leaves stick to your shoes like leeches – it’s winter.