The Switch and the Snow Day

Ever wish you could just flip a switch and turn your feelings into what you think they should be? Sometimes feelings are ill-timed. Like a hard rain at harvest, or snow in April. It's magical at Christmas time. When you see those big white flakes in December most people are glad, even joyful at the arrival of winter's thick white blanket. But see those same big flakes in April (at least here in my section of the Northwest), and your heart is filled with dismay. All you can think is, "Why now?" It's precisely the wrong time for that kind of weather.

Sometimes feelings are the same way. Sometimes you like someone. No--you don't just like them. You care about them more than you have ever cared for someone that way before. And all you can think is "Why now?" It's precisely the wrong time for this kind of weather. But what can you do? You can no more stop your feelings than you can stop the flakes of snow from falling from the sky. It's impossible. What you really need is a big cosmic switch that would allow you to close off your heart to all such feelings when the time is inconvenient.

Well maybe there are no cosmic switches. Perhaps you can't clog up the clouds or stop up your heart, but you can stay indoors. You can refuse to allow yourself to go outside and play in the white fluffy snow. After all, the timing is all wrong. You don't have what you need. No winter clothes, no sweaters or hats or gloves... Instead you bar yourself off from the play and sledding and snowman building. After all, it's what's best for you right now. You can go outside and have a good time now in the magical winter wonderland (and pay for it later with pneumonia and bronchitis) or you can stay indoors and enjoy the snow that will invariably fall (or so they say--again, if you live where I do there's no guarantee) next winter--when you're ready.

But while this may be the logical thing to do, you aren't completely settled to go through with this plan. Instead your heart and head come head to head and fight inside you, keeping you from any moments of peace. Your head wants you to stay inside. Your head tells you that this is what is best for you. It says that if you were really as mature and as smart as you wanted everyone to believe you to be, as you want to believe you are, you would go through with your original plan. Not only that, you would execute it with dignity, self-control, and grace.

But your heart--your heart wants you go out and enjoy the snow now. It wants you to skip all the logic and listen to the reasoning of emotion. After all, who is to say you will get sick? Not everyone who goes outside without gloves comes down ill later. Anyway. . . this is a great snow, one of the best you've ever experienced. It seems nearly perfect (then again, you haven't really seen enough snow to be able to judge, have you?). You want to enjoy this snow now. After all, if you wait till next winter the snow that comes might be grainier, or stickier, or not sticky enough, or too thin. Or worse yet, there may be no snow at all next winter, or the next. Who knows when snow will come again?

But despite these anxieties (they come mostly after you've made your decision anyway) you do the responsible thing. You stay indoors. You don't look at the snow (though you think a lot about it) and you try to wait it all out. You hope that eventually you won't want to play in the snow after a while. You hope that by the time you open the door again you either won't want to be in the snow anymore, or the snow will be gone--completely melted away.

But what if you go back outside (for some innocent reason or out of necessity), and the snow is still there? What if you go back outside and not only is the snow still there, but you want to be apart of it more than ever before? Then what? And furthermore, what if you not only don't want to wait for another snow, but you don't even want another snow. What if you want this one and only this one no matter what your head says? It's a conundrum. And a tough one.

Now obviously this is far from a perfect metaphor, and snow represents more than one thing here (keep this in mind). But this was the only way I could think of to talk about what I'm trying to address here. It's 2:52AM right now and all I can think is, "I'm caught in a blizzard."