Thank you, snow

I reside in the Hudson Valley of New York. Atop quite a tall hill, we are stationed. The view from my second floor room is lovely. Mt. Stissing, due right. My Mother and her husband, Ed, have a goal to hike to the top of every mountain above such and such altitude. I forget how many they've racked up.

Snow had been drifting all day and was quilting the street, stitch by stitch. Careful acceleration in a vehicle with 4 wheel drive. Still, we slid along a ditch in our attempt to broach the driveway, landing inches from the neighbors' mailbox.

Ed responded to our call armed with a sled and a shovel. He was met, he noted, with a block party at the end of the driveway. There was a car that was being pushed up the road by four or five teenage boys. Another stranded in the driveway next to ours.

My broken leg and I were positioned on the sled and Ed pulled us up the long, steep driveway. I used to run sets up and down this patch of asphalt. Ten would do it - well.

Back in the house, Millet and I waited by the fire for an hour or so for the accomplishment of managing the car into the garage to be announced. This is what I remember of New York winters. Sending out rescue parties to save friends who had been abandoned along the road in blizzards. Slipping underneath a car while trying to cross the street because the blanket was so thick that I couldn't stop being folded into it. Going a week without heat, substituting whiskey, before the city could fully respond to an ice storm in Buffalo.

I loved it. The sled ride. The day. The taste of snow.

My mood has completely shifted. Despite being broken, I feel whole. I no longer yearn for things I can not be a part of. There is no longer a forced time line on my recovery. Just acceptance that my body will do its job at the rate it feels up to it.

After immersing myself (and almost drowning), I have resurfaced calm. Until this point, I have never dealt with so much in my life. I left town after town at the drop of a hat, or relationship, and had no idea how to realize the source of my emotions. Bad at communicating because I couldn't share what I didn't know myself. My last post was a step towards opening my inner cavern, the space where the things I can't deal with are ensconced, one by one.

I am learning. So much. Not just what I don't want, which is what formerly constituted a revelation. What I do want. By opening myself up I can see who I am - all of it.

I am using this time and am finally not wishing to be anywhere else. The future holds so much, but it is the present that will take me there. I have already started. Thank you, Saturn Return, for forcing me to jettison my hidden cargo. It's so much lighter without it. Who knows, Ed may never have reached the top of the hill had not I purged. :)