There is no Bad Weather
I’m ready for spring! The first day has come and gone and I’ve yet to experience noticeably warmer weather. And I have to say, I’m more than ready to be out in some fresh spring air, air that is WARM, with the smell of new cut grass. I want to see flowers along the sidewalks and trees in full bloom in my neighborhood.
It seems like it’s been a long winter. Colder than usual, more snow than usual. I’m not normally a complainer, even though it is a social norm in most places I’ve ever lived to gripe about the weather. It’s almost a requirement, like worrying. And it has been months since I could go out without being all bundled up. Except for that teaser last month. Oh, Mother Nature, you can be mean!
The Norwegians have a saying: “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.” For these people, who are practically born with skis on their feet and who swept the medals in the 2018 Winter Olympics – again -may I say, “Kudos to you!” Kudos for figuring out how to put a positive spin on winters that last for eight months, two of them in the dark, and summers that are as short as four weeks. Sometimes, summer just passes them by and they go straight from spring to fall.
I say everyone deserves a summer. If you love snow and skiing for miles in it every day for fun and wearing knitted hats and mittens and sweaters that are so sturdy you can pass them down for generations, again, kudos to you. Norway is home to over five million people and they’ve worked out how to be happy there. Don’t complain about the weather. Bundle up. Go outside and get vigorous Nordic skiing exercise every day. Then sit by the fire eating a chocolate bar like our Kit Kat and a black salty licorice called salmiak and knit your own clothes the rest of the time. And go up into the mountains to stay the winter weekend in cabins with no electricity, outhouses, and sometimes six feet of snow you have to clear just to get in the door. They love it!
For the rest of us, are you looking forward to summer? Or have circumstances and situations in your life made it feel like winter is never going to end for you? Does it make you want to just roll over in bed and never get up? Always cold? Always gray? Like in the Chronicles of Narnia, “Always winter and never Christmas?”
Everyone deserves a warm spring. Everyone deserves summer. You deserve a life that has its bright warm spots, and days and weeks and months of life worth getting out of bed for.
So if you suspect you have more than just the end of winter blues, take this quiz from Feeling Kinda Blue.
And then find a good therapist to talk with. Because everyone deserves to experience the hope of spring and the warm days of summer in their lives. You don’t have to live in endless winter with never a Christmas. Even the Norwegians have their Christmas trees and dig snow alcoves they light with candles and host skiing parties under the Northern Lights. You don’t have to just bundle up and deny things are bad in your life. You can get the help you need so that spring will come again for you, too. You deserve it.
- Autumn Starks, LCSW (about)
Founder and Psychotherapist, Starks Therapy Group
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