The weather these past couple of weeks has not been fun. And
if the 10-day forecast is any indication of what’s ahead, this week the weather
won’t be too fun either. Besides two freak warm-ish rainy days, the temperature
tends to waver between cold, freezing cold, and obnoxiously cold. And windy. And,
along with that, it usually snows. But I haven’t minded the snow very much at
all. In fact, I think it’s quite beautiful - the way it sparkles like sequins
as it falls in the moonlight or coats everything in a blanket of white.
However, it’s not so beautiful when it starts to melt and turns to slush. Or
when multiple footprints turn the white blanket into a brownish, muddy one. Not
only because it doesn’t look pretty. But because when you live on a campus
that’s small enough to make you walk everywhere, you tend to slip a lot.
Well…at least I do.
I think I slipped while walking at least 30 times last
week, and definitely 10 times today. I
never actually fall down, but now that I’ve said that out loud, I probably will
find a way to tomorrow. What happens is that I think I’m putting one foot in
front of the other, but it doesn’t exactly end up on the ground. It starts to
slide out from under me and then my arms flail (gracefully, of course, like a
bird taking flight…) in an attempt to keep my balance and there’s that moment
of absolute panic where I think that I’m about to die. Or at least be extremely
embarrassed. One friend even questioned whether or not it snowed in New Jersey
based on my seeming inability to walk like a normal person in it.
When it happens, I like to blame the shoes I’m wearing,
or the ice, or the crack in the sidewalk or pretty much anything that doesn’t
involve admitting that I’m a klutz. Am I living in denial? Absolutely not.
I could be super cliché and say that sometimes life is
like a sidewalk on a day when the path is icy. But I’m not going to, because
then I would have to switch my major out of shame.
However, I will say this. I think that sometimes we don’t
do a good enough job walking on sidewalks in winter. We shuffle through the
day, knowing it’s the time of year where, more often than not, we’re going to
have a hard and unpleasant time walking around. So we pray that we don’t
completely wipe out and pray that spring comes soon so that the sun completely
melts all of the ice away.
I’ve realized that too often, I try to get through the
tough situations and seasons of life by putting up a feeble attempt to be
“brave” and “stick it out” by simply waiting for things to get better.
But we can always wear different shoes. Or try to walk
where the path isn’t as treacherous. Or simply take our steps a little bit
slower. The point is – our situations are never hopeless. “Difficult,” “frustrating,”
“uncertain” and “slippery” will never be synonyms for “hopeless.” Waiting for
spring isn’t the only way to survive the winter.
