Seasons

The change in seasons has made itself apparent now, even though it is about 70 degrees today (you’ve got to love the Front Range weather). We’ve had some frosty mornings, and even some snow flurries a couple weeks ago. Most of the colors are gone, and the trees are bare in my neighborhood. I’m just waiting for one maple tree to finish before I rake the leaves.

I like the early part of fall for the great colors and the milder temperatures after the heat of summer, but with it comes a sense of foreboding. I know the cold is coming soon, and winter weather is on the way. I hate winter. I was raised in the Midwest, where you learn to hate winter in a way that makes you curse it just like you wanted to curse the school bully you were afraid to stand up to. I hate the short days and the gray that skies put me in a funk, making me lethargic and depressed until the sun comes out again. I hate the snow that makes it hard to walk or bike to school. The snow that quickly turns to ugly gray/black drifts piled along the roads.

And the cold. Oh, how I hate the cold. It just seeps in, and grips me from the inside. Even in the house, at a temperature that feels quite comfortable any other time of the year, I rarely feel warm. This I attribute to my seven winters and a few summers in Phoenix after escaping the Midwest. My blood thinned out down there, and it can’t seem to thicken up again.

Winter gets me down, but as winters go, they aren’t so bad here in Fort Collins. A lot of times, the snow melts shortly after it falls (except for last winter’s freak storms), and the mountains look just as pretty in winter as they do in summer. I made a pretty good seasonal compromise in picking Fort Collins for a year-round home. Even so, I wish I could have late May all year long.