I spent years of my life, the majority of my childhood and those as a teenager, wishing and hoping like so any others that this year there will be a White Christmas , please, oh, please. It was like praying to Santa, because (and I couldn't have been the only one) I know when I was six, I thought Santa was like God-of-Christmas-time. Given, I have never for a day in my life believed in God (as the capital-G version, in any sense, but that topic is for another day), so Santa was pretty much the head-honcho of universal power and awe, and of course if he brought the entire world presents in a night, HE was the one who had to have controlled the snow on Christmas.

But looking back, unless it's tucked away in some unimpressive corner of mind, because there's no doubt that it would have been melt-away-quick unimpressive had it happened, I don't remember a single White Christmas when I was growing up - when it really mattered. And anyway, snow in New Mexico (and trust it hasn't failed to start doing this this year) melts away fairly quickly, leaving only some icy patches on roads that were never plowed well enough and the muddy dregs of the storm on the sides of hills that never get sunlight to melt them.

This year, though, the first year I've really considered myself an adult, for all intensive purposes (or, intents and purposes, depending on where you're from) , been out on my own supporting myself and starting to learn what it really means to be doing so; the first year in which not a single ounce of me really cared to deal with a White Christmas? Of course we don't just get the makings of a White Christmas, we get a fucking blizzard. The words White Christmas mean a whole different world of shit (read: "I have to drive in this ____.") when you're an adult and there's been a blizzard. It means the risk of running out of windshield-wiper fluid (haven't done yet); getting your car stuck in the snow and ice (done); brief moment of panic when your car goes over some especially bad and unexpected ice (done); jack-asses driving badly as usual, but moreso now that there's less room to excuse their jack-assery (totally done); traffic jams from hell (an icy, icy hell - done); and on and so forth. And boy did I get to drive in it. To work and from work and then all the way to New Mexico to spend Christmas with my mom and dad, in their respective houses.

But I suppose, considering I managed it all safely, it's not so bad, and I am certainly thankful to be spending time with my parents as opposed to being alone in my apartment. Moreso because I've also picked up strep throat or some other fun throat infection, and am on a roller coaster of being alright, just slightly uncomfortable and painful to wanting to cry my throat is in so much pain and my body just hurts. The background annoying fever doesn't help the situation, but at least it means my body is, in fact, fighting this, though I'll still probably need antibiotics. I'm still not enough of an adult to not want my mom or dad when I really feel like crap.

What a week this has been, and the next will be.

I certainly have a new outlook on the snow after all of this. Aside from the fact that building snow men is probably one of the most fun times a person can have, I've decided I'm really just not a fan of it. It's cold and wet and makes life more hazardous and irritating, and it only really looks pretty for the first day, and sometimes just the first hours, until everyone drives in it and stomps around in it and then it's all just gray-brown and slushy. It's sort of ironic, I guess, that I wanted to move to Colorado as much as I did. I'm a mountain-rat, at heart, I really am, and that's why (among other things) I moved up, but it has never been because of snow or winter-sports (I've never skied or snowboarded a day in my life) IN the mountains.

Here's to Spring coming early this year.

Labels: Christmas, driving in snow, mom and dad, snow, sore throat, White Christmas, winter