It is the 12th day of January 2018 and it is cold. I mean arctic blast cold. There is something about a cold day that makes you introspective. I suppose it is because you are cooped up in the house so much. Locked away with all of the dust and central heat. Hiding from the fresh but frigid air. Limited physical activity forces you to think. Especially for a guy that tends to get to stuck in his head. As my wife knows all too well, I am a processer. A simple conflict can send me retreating into my head in an attempt to try and make sense of the situation, ergo, processing.
But I digress…
It is the isolating backdrop to the start of a new year. A new blog. A slow but steady anticipation buried beneath icy snow. Hope that “maybe this year will be better than the last”. Hope that all of this processing will finally get me some where. Hope that the heating bill isn’t astronomical this month.
One of the more noble features of these cold winters is the quiet. At times it can be overwhelming and yet other times it can be quite peaceful and refreshing. It has been a tough winter already and it is still early. We have suffered through a friend’s suicide, my dad’s cancer diagnosis and the unrelenting demands of the kids activities and competition teams that couldn’t care less about life’s more existential moments. Looking into the abyss and facing mortality can be exhausting. It also forces reflection on the direction of one’s life. 2018 is going to be an eventful year. I can feel it in each cold gust. I can feel it in the quiet – the overwhelming quiet.