Winter

I have never been a big fan of winters. I don’t like the snow much, I don’t like to be under the blanket every time, I hate piling up layers before going out and above all I hate the super short days.

I get three weeks off as winter break and they become the most unproductive 3 weeks of my year. I don’t see a motivation to get out of my house, hence I sleep in till sunset and stay up till almost sunrise. I just stay in bed and sleep and eat. I don’t like being lazy but the cold just doesn’t help.

(No wonder summers are amazing)

I wish there was a way I knew how to be a little more active in winter. On top of the cold, there is the holiday season in winter which makes one eat like crazy.

How do people ever not be lazy or gain weight during this time. Beyond me. I have not figured that one out yet, and i doubt its happening anytime soon.

Philadelphia just had one of its worst snow storms ever last week. Everything came to a stand still. No cars,. No busses. Just snow and more snow on the ground and in the air.

How is that pretty? How do you function in such conditions? How do you manage to like winter in such situations?

And living on the east coast means  winter becomes the longest season of the year. It just never ends… SIGH

(I swear if I didn’t like it here so much I would have moved to the west)

All in all I wish winters did not make me so unproductive. All I do is gain weight and see the scale go up.

Dislike!

You hear it in silence

Catchy title eh?

You know when people say silence is powerful, you sometimes wonder how so?

I know how so.

Yesterday, I went and stood next to my old house. I could not hear anything, and I just closed my eyes, and all the memories came rushing back.

How I spent all my teenage years there. How I met so many people, made so many friends there. How I tasted the not so appealing societal pressure, and the need to be secrete in whatever you do to hide from all those eyes, who are watching everything you do, and just waiting for an opportunity to gossip about it.

I remembered how I grew up trying to fight everything my parents said (typical teenager), and getting away with things. How I had to fight for every minute of freedom outside the house, and the curfew seemed to be on 24/7.

How I met my first boy friend, the guy who can still give me butterflies (I am not too sure about this one, I need to see him first, which I have not in 5 or 6 years). How I always sneaked out to see him. Ahhhh.. days where everything was adventurous.

That house reminded of so many things. Things I can't imagine doing anymore. Things I see girls my age doing now. It's such a cycle. But I am so very far from it, it seems so unreal sometimes.

I can not imagine not being able to talk on the phone at 1 am if I want to, and there were the days where talking on the phone so late could not be achieved so easily. And even before were the days of no cell phones, where using the home phone meant keeping your guard up, because mom being mom, might just pick it up from the other side and listen to your conversations.

And here I am now, with all the freedom in the world. No questions asked, no answers expected. It's really amazing how far have I come. I see my girl friends here still having the same issues, and when they tell me, "I dont think mom will let me come out,".. sometimes I don't understand why. I left home at 18, saw my parents after 2 years, travelled to Europe by myself, I did so much on my own, that I think asking me not to leave the house would be a kinda weird. I feel blessed to have achieved what I have, to get the freedom I always wanted (thanks to my parents for that, being the kid I was, they really had to have some guts to do this), and to live a life that I have no regrets with (apart from you know the usual I blab about)

So when I close my eyes, and stand outside my old house, I hear it in silence, I hear the echoes of the past, and the memories I created there.