[Seasons: Winter I]
Winter doesn’t come until January. December feels like a winter month, with the holiday festivities and the cold temperatures, but winter waits nearly two months longer to come. In this way, winter is always a type of seasonal paradox: we wait and prepare for it nearly a half season early, but when it arrives it always surprises us with its harshness.
We can get our house in order, our lines blown free of water, and the animals prepped for future cold fronts, but it’s always colder and darker than expected. This is true on the farm but also metaphorically.
There is no "fully preparing" for the winters of life. Even if you begin early, follow the advice of others, and do everything right: winters always have an element of surprise and seem more extreme than predicted. There’s no “winning” winters; they are merely sustained. Winters force a cold, hard break from the past season, a time of struggle for survival, and a reemergence.
Without the struggle, it wouldn’t be winter.
Without our preparatory shortcomings, it wouldn’t be winter.
If you’re in a winter season and it seems unbearable… it is! It wouldn’t be winter otherwise.
