The Winter of my Discontent
I was born into winter. As such, I’ve always had an affinity for the season and, in particular, the snow it would bring to Delaware. I remember the childlike wonder with which I used to stare outside the window, watching the snow fall from the night sky. It’s a fresh memory because, even as a twenty-three year old, I still find so much magic in the way that the light catches each individual flake.
As a child, I specifically recall hoping and hoping the snow would wrap the roads of my small town in its sheets, causing my school to cancel the next day. I always loved school, but the allure of a day in which I could sled down hills and build forts in my neighbor’s front yard proved much more enticing.
I also love winter for its divine sunsets. How, in a uniquely wintery way, the sun tops its fantastic orange hues with shades of splattered magenta across the sky before they all recede into a deep violet and, eventually, give way to the black of night. Watching a winter sunset always reminds me of the heat that would emanate from the vents in my mother’s car, specifically on those days where I would wait for her to finish work. No matter how cold I am, the sunsets make me remember the warmth I felt in those many moments, as well as the cold of the window on my hand. The magic of realizing it was cold out there while I was warm inside.
Perhaps most of all, I love Christmas. I’m especially fond, more broadly, of this season of giving. A time where we, collectively, place the utmost importance upon showing those we love how much we care for them. We illustrate it through giving gifts, through spending time, through making food. This time in the winter is one in which everyone embraces the magic, whether that magic looks like an old man who can travel around the world in one night, or a candle that, against all odds, remains lit for eight days and nights, or something else that is equally magical.
This sense of love and magic is vital to the winter which is, simultaneously, a challenging time. I know how disappointed I find myself when the brilliant white of the snowfall eventually turns into a dark gray slush. Additionally, I’m well aware of the hazards posed by that same snow that coats the roads; how it indiscriminately traps the wheels of various vehicles or, even worse, conceals patches of ice that cause those vehicles to unpredictably slip and slide into each other.
In a similar way, along with those radiant sunsets comes the fact that it gets dark much earlier. The Sun, the closest being we have to a material creator, gives us less time, instead choosing to focus on another hemisphere. No matter how many years we live through it, as the days become shorter and shorter, we have a tendency to become more and more unsure whether the sun will rise again.
Even my beloved season of giving can prove painful. It can open the wounds, both new and old, left by friends and family who are, for whatever reason, no longer in our lives. After being inundated with advertising, photographs, and movies depicting people coming together, many still feel isolated as they spend the season alone.
Furthermore, despite the more loving and magical sections of its reputation, winter remains closely associated with death. I, however, tend to disagree with this sentiment. The leaves on the trees die in the fall. They express one last gasp of color before their life source sheds them to preserve itself. The fields, frozen and fallow in the winter, are harvested in the fall. Rather than being death itself, winter is more of an aftermath. It is the time wherein we grieve what once was.
Or perhaps I’m biased, as I felt death all around me last fall. After six months of living at home in Hockessin, and two months of a strange limbo between the two locations, I moved to New York City. A place that, as my mother will tell you, I’ve wanted to live since the first time she brought me here. That wish-fulfillment aspect of the move is still something that floors me quite often. I’m doing it, I got here, I have achieved one of my dreams. I find that part amazing, and I’m happy with the decision I made. However, with this new phase comes a metaphorical death of my old life. I had to leave a job I loved, I forfeited seeing my family as often, and I abandoned a kind of comfortability that, frankly, I’m not sure exists in my new home. I remain exhilarated by this new chapter, but it would be false to say that there isn’t a certain sense of loss in the end that ushered in its beginning.
In addition, right after I moved, I experienced another death. This one much less metaphorical. On Thanksgiving Day, my dog, Buddy, died. The first dog that I successfully taught to fetch. The dog that I spent hours with as we walked around my neighborhood the year or so before he passed. A dog I, quite honestly, loved like no other dog I’ve ever had. A being that, to me, came to represent all that was benevolent, and loyal, and loving in this world. A dog I looked at and, quite macabrely, thought, “I’m going to be so upset when you die.” Then, it happened; much sooner than I thought it ever would. And, despite my attempt to, in some strange way, preemptively alleviate it, I could not predict the depths of my despair over his passing. It’s something that, a month and half later, I’m still quite sad about. The night before I’m writing this, I had a dream that he came home. Same with the next night. I’m still welling up reading all of this back as I revise. I’m not devastated in the same way I was the day he died, but in a way I think I’ll always be over the fact that he’s no longer with me.
On top of all of that, there’s the challenges that come with adjusting to a new city. I find myself in a weird transitional space wherein I have memories of the lives I had in New Castle County, and then in Pittsburgh; lives that were full of art, and laughter, and close friendships. I don’t have a life like those yet here in New York. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s to be expected. One cannot build a life like those in a measly two months. This is especially true considering when I moved. Since November, I’ve constantly been beckoned back home for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or even a wisdom teeth extraction. While I love my home, this back and forth has invited a certain sense of disjointedness in my new life, making it feel like I’m constantly starting then stopping before starting again and stopping and so on and so forth. I know all of this in my rational mind, but there still exists that weird, irrational part of my brain that doesn’t let me believe it all the way. My id, or my inner-saboteur, or whatever one may call it, tells me that I could have built the life I want by now, but have not due to my own error. Luckily, this more negative voice does not dominate my thoughts all of the time; however, it still manages to make itself known. All of this to say that this winter has been a rough one for me. A challenging yet, ultimately fitting end to the year of growing pains that was 2023.
But then, right under the wire, something magical happened. As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, I was born into winter. December 18th, to be exact (which is technically three days shy of winter, but who’s counting?). This year, much like the year I was born, December 18th fell on a Monday. With my birthday beginning the penultimate week of 2023, I had the idea to invite some friends to come and see my new home over the preceding weekend. My friends Corey and Eion obliged, and we spent a fantastic weekend together.
They came in on that Friday night, and we ended up closing down my local piano bar, laughing with each other as we caught up and reminisced. The next day, we wandered around the city before hitting the town and dancing the night away. On Sunday, we attended a marathon, pseudo-dada drag brunch which ended at the totally reasonable hour of six PM. I was not only joined by Corey and Eion, but also my friends Becca, Bridget, Caroline, Cat, Annie, and Jasmine to celebrate my birthday with me at some point that weekend.
That Saturday, I remember getting emotional as I spoke with Becca on the dance floor of a gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen. I was so incredibly touched by how the weekend came together, particularly at the number of people who made a point to spend time with me. Some of them I’ve known since high school, others since college. I met a lot of them doing theater, but others through being a tour guide. It was as if, as I prepared to enter a new year of life in a new place, I was serendipitously being reminded of some of the best gifts I had been given in the years before. Even in that moment on the dance floor, it dawned on me how rare an occurrence that weekend really was. Not everyone gets to experience feeling that surrounded by love, even if only for a weekend, and I just found myself so incredibly grateful for the magic of it all.
As I’ve been writing this piece, the essay I wrote about the spring keeps coming to mind. In that piece, I wrote about how, even though I’m in a transitional period twixt the spring and the summer of my life, I believe we also go through multiple cycles of each season in our own lives. Perhaps it’s the winter around me, but it has made me feel that I’m experiencing a winter of my own. I, myself, am mourning what once was while simultaneously trying to recognize the magic of the snow and the colors of the sunset and the warmth of the giving spirit. It’s a lot but I’m somehow managing it, no matter how messy it all may feel. And maybe that’s the lesson to take from this winter: while the season may manifest as all of these complex forces acting in tandem with one another, I am equipped to handle them. Or, at the very least, I’m on my way.
Therefore, winter, go ahead! Pull me in all your various directions! I not only feel more equipped within myself to contend with your various throes, but, in those moments wherein I find myself struggling, I have also been reassured in how blessed I am to have such a vast network to support me. A network that I’m confident will continue to grow in my new home, just as it has before. After all, the yellow flowers of spring are just around the corner!
Thank you for reading this week’s post! Apropos of nothing, I’ve decided I want to start including a weekly round up of stuff I like at the end of my pieces. Many other Substacks do this, and I always think they’re fun, so let’s go!
Ariana Grande’s new song and its accompanying video. We should always be referencing Paula Abdul!
Bethenny Frankel’s YouTube Page
The Traitors Season Two, Episodes One, Two, and Three
1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg
This article on why winter sunsets are, scientifically, superior to others
This illuminating podcast on the New York Times’ coverage of trans people and issues
Keep writing Quinn!!!!🩷🩷🩷🥰😘😍
Famously, I am a winter hater… you have brought fresh perspective to the season