So I have a bit of a controversial statement I need to make. Are you sitting down?!?

I love winter

I love how… low pressure it is. I love that I can have almost a whole week off, and do nothing but curl up under a blanket with a book. I’ve been in the habit of rotating self help psychology books with memoirs by my favourite comedians, I loved Ali Wong’s book Dear Girls! Wow I just erased that last comma and made it a semi-colon about 4 times. The comma just seems more approachable, right?! This is the kind of perfectionism I’m going to try to nip in the bud over the next few posts. I actually sat down to write this post yesterday afternoon… My goal: to write about something I love aka, winter. What came out? A manifesto on why Rom-Coms are as poisonous to relationships as porn is to sex. I think I’ll save that for another time, maybe Valentine’s day!

Anyway, back to winter. I know it’s “cool” to be outside, but I love being inside. Especially in the city- where outside means navigating giant man-eating puddles (at least in Montreal in February), people walking while texting (which I realized yesterday, are just as much a nuisance to the flow of traffic as a snowplow- if you see one coming, you best be jumping out of the way) and let’s throw in a third reason… oh right… the cold.

Even in the summer, when only one of those three things is a threat, I struggle from FOMO. When I decide to take myself on a nice walk through Park Jarry, which has a beautiful fountain in the middle and has more wildlife than most of the other city parks, I am met with a sea of friend gangs playing pétanque and cooking on their tiny barbecues; and couples weaved together on a blanket like a shitty braid. Part of me is happy for them, but part of me would sell an organ to have that life. I have to remind myself, maybe this friend group hasn’t seen each other in ages, and this is a one time thing! Surely they’re not coming here every weekend to bask in each other’s love and support and store-bought macaroni salad. And that couple over there- maybe they’ve been fighting all week, and this was their truce! They agreed to just have a nice afternoon in the park before going home and going at it again over who is spending more time in the bathroom.

I have to remind myself, you know who’s life is really awesome?! Mine!!

Anyway, back to winter. So yeah, I like that there is no pressure to be outside. I can wrap myself in a cocoon of blankets (cat included) and slippers and tea and just BE, uninterrupted by the sounds of lollygaggers (yeah, I don’t really know what that word means either, spell-check…) coming from my open window. We are ALL in a cocoon. We have all slowed the fuck down. And that puts my mind at ease, knowing everybody else is doing the same thing as I am.

A social worker told me once that contrary to popular belief, people tend to struggle more with depression in the summer, than the winter. You hear of seasonal affective disorder (“SAD”) and you just assume people are happier in the summer because the sun is stronger, but turns out, I’m not the only one that suffers from FOMO. People like to feel like they’re more or less experiencing what everyone else is experiencing. So people with depression feel more at ease amongst people who are hunkered down in their nests than people out running around seemingly having the best time of their lives. Fuck off, extremely happy people!! You’re ruining it for the rest of us!!

I love being inside, but when I do venture outside, I am met with even more reasons I love winter: the snow on bare trees, the brisk fresh air, and kids waddling in over-sized fluorescent snow suits. God bless them all. I’m going to leave you with the pièce de résistance: the thing that inspired this whole post but somehow like usual I got totally off track. I give you, the #1 reason I love winter:

Dogs in Booties