gray days

Its that introspective time of year when the days are gray and wet, when no one goes out, not even the kids cause the mud is ankle deep. Here in Missouri it is never really cold long enough for the ground to freeze. Here you don't have to worry about your spring bulbs freezing, you have to worry about them rotting underground. Snow never lasts for more than the time it takes to turn to slush and thats just never pretty. Ice rules here. The storms are sleet and freezing rain. Those are pretty but deadly. The ice coats the trees and the next day there is invariably sun for it to glint off of. The dangers lie on the same place as the beauty, ice on trees makes the brittle winter branches break and fall.

I think of all these things as I am contemplating my eminent move north. To a place where the ground does freeze. Where there is snow, but the sun hides for months on end. There are also loved ones and warm places, new things to explore and people to meet. Have to take the good with the bad I guess. I'm really looking forward to the adventure. I'm also looking forward to having a regular spiritual life for the first time in,... well since I started college seven and a half years ago. After being the missionary kid and a preacher's kid and going to church three times a week at least for most of my life, its been very hard to live without that kind of spiritual influence. I promised my honey that I would not get that carried away. But, he's also expressed interest in learning so maybe he won't feel alienated after all.

Life is good overall and I'm packing my life into boxes. Compartmentalizing and labeling, organizing and cleaning before everything gets moved. You find all kinds of things this way that you forgot, and thought you lost. Some that you wish you had not remembered but the silliness of youth will insinuate itself into the rest of your memory no matter how hard you fight it. At this point, I wonder why even bother. Without who you were you wouldn't be who you are today.