It is so difficult for me to believe how quickly winter is approaching, and it kind of scares me. Today, I went to Penfield with a couple of friends to do homework at around 3:30 or so, and by the time we were done at the library and therefore heading back to Waterbury (which was a little after 5), it was starting to get dark outside, and by the time we were back at Waterbury, it really was dark outside. The days are beginning to get shorter and shorter, and night falls earlier and earlier. Winter is right around the corner.
I don’t understand and I have never understood why some people love Winter, but that’s just my opinion. It gives me a feeling of being sheltered. Practically everything in nature is covered by a cold, white substance which dominates the earth for months, and I guess that it makes me feel the same way. It makes me feel cold and sheltered. In addition, most plants and trees are dead, and everyone, myself included, is more inclined to spend more time inside since it’s so cold out (and here, windy, too), and I hate that. The season itself affects my mood for the worse, and that is why I say that the approaching months scare me.
Don’t get me wrong; I love Christmas, and I love the snow when it’s here around the holiday season, but I often find myself (every year, in fact) wishing that it would go away afterward. Right now, I am really happy, but I suppose that my fear is that this current state is the “calm before the storm,” if you will, and that I don’t have very long before an end is put to it. Last year, my most difficult times, not only of my freshmen year but of my entire life thus far, were spent during the winter months, and I really don’t think that that is a coincidence.
Everyone enjoys “alone time” every now and then, myself included. However, I am pretty sure that I’d go clinically insane, as I think a lot of people would, if most of my time was spent alone, and last year, that’s how it was for me. I was primarily alone probably 80% of the time, and that time alone was primarily spent doing homework and studying. It was just an all-around difficult year for me, and at the end of the year, I made a pact that I was going to do everything that I possibly could to make this year a better one, to make it exceed last year on so many levels, and so far, I have done just that. I have been getting more sleep, I have managed my time more effectively, I have had a lot more fun, and I have had a much more accelerated social experience.
It’s kind of sad when I actually stop and think about that, because as happy as I am now, if only I had had everything last year that I have this year, if only I could have been as happy. If I had been, a great deal of pain would most likely have been prevented, and next year, I have a couple of friends who want to live in the townhouses, and likewise, that scares me, because even though I know that the townhouses aren’t exactly in the same vicinity as the residence halls on that side of campus (Oneida, ‘Daga, Cayuga and Seneca), but they are still on the same side of campus, and I’m so afraid that being on that side of campus again is going to bring back memories. I left that side of campus to avoid the trauma, and I love this side of campus.
You, whoever you are reading this, that is, might be wondering why it is that I don’t just tell them this and stay on this side of campus. “Surely, you have other friends,” you most likely wonder, and yes, I do. I have plenty, in fact. However, this particular group of friends is the closest to my heart and has been since I first started here last year as a freshmen, and I really don’t think that I could realistically live here without them and be happy. I will follow them wherever they go, and sometimes, although not always, there are ways around pain. Sometimes, there is help available for you, and that is yet another reason why I have not said to any of them that I don’t want to live in the townhouses. I know that if I am in pain for whatever reason, they’d be there to help me.
In the meantime, I am just going to relax and enjoy life and enjoy this school year. My problem is, I suppose you could say, that I fear change. When my life takes a turn for the good, I fear that something is going to ruin it, and when I become vehemently comfortable in a certain situation, the idea that it isn’t always going to be like that, that it is one day soon going to be drastically changed, really scares me. I have a lot of friends that I know I won’t be seeing too much of next year, especially on weekends in the winter time when there are no buses available, and no matter where I want to go on weekends in the winter time, for that matter, I’ll have the choice of either staying cooped up inside or venturing out into Oswego’s Winter chaos. There are a lot of aspects to the experience, such as those just mentioned, that I’m really not looking forward to by any means, but like I said, for now, I think I’m just going to look to the future as a positive enforcement and hope for the best, because after all, what else can I hope for?