Snow covers the ground, the back porch, the picnic table. There's not enough to be described as that beautiful white blanket, covering up the world's impurities, as it is so often considered. I can still see the dirt through the snow. I can still see the muddy December-in-Ohio ground lurking underneath. I wish there was more snow to fulfill this desire I have to have a "really bad winter" just one year, to have a winter that even meets the description of what I grew up calling winter in Ohio, with days where my dad couldn't go to work because the roads were so bad; days where the snow piled so high I would jump from the little maple tree in the front yard of my childhood home into piles of snow deep enough I could almost pretend to not feel the hard ground beneath my young body; days where the trees were so covered in ice they looked as though they were merely ice sculpted to look like trees that I referred to simply as "ice trees," taking pictures of them the very first chance I got with my new cell phone at the age of 14. I miss those winter days in Ohio. The snow I see now leaves me with a bittersweet feeling, reminding me of childhood memories, only to sadden at them because I miss those days.
It makes me think of an unrequited love, when someone makes you so happy just by being around because you love them; but their presence only ultimately serves to make you sad because the love you feel toward them is not reciprocated toward you. You could pour yourself out for them, give all of yourself, but never see anything in return. It is draining, mentally exhausting. Just like when my imagination runs away from me. I imagine myself moving to another state, Michigan, of all places, and partially for the snow, driving all of our things there next year in a big moving truck. Coincidentally, it would be from Uhaul with fun facts about Ohio, however unlikely, which would merely remind me of what I was leaving behind, denying me any opportunity of looking forward. But perhaps I already look forward too much.
I am consistently thinking of the future, never my present. If I'm not thinking of moving, I'm thinking of my upcoming wedding, but not in the productive way where I get everything ready for it and feel prepared. More like in a way where I just imagine it playing out perfectly. I imagine our honeymoon. I imagine our first dance, slowly dancing to some yet unknown song. But it will all be perfect, even if I never work to make it that way. The cake will be perfect, even though I don't know who will make it. I can already envision it.
And if I'm not dwelling on the future, I'm dwelling on the past. I'm thinking about things I wish I could change. I'm thinking about things I would never change, reliving memories, like when I first met my fiancee. I remember seeing him for the first time and not allowing myself to find him attractive because I had just entered a relationship with someone else. I remember eating lunch with him thinking he dressed nice and cussed a lot. I remember after the other guy broke up with me being terrified to talk to my now fiancee because of how attracted I was to him and how I wouldn't add him on facebook until we no longer worked the same job and I wouldn't have to see him anymore.
I might as well be thinking of myself on a rocket ship. When I imagine the future, it's like me thinking I'm going to the moon. I don't know if I'll move, and I certainly don't know that nothing will go wrong at my wedding, because it probably will. But thinking of my fiancee and the chances of meeting him at the perfect time, and beginning our relationship at the perfect time five months later, it reminds me that the uncertainties in life are worth it, because even though I don't know that I'll ever see another "Ohio winter" or that I'll ever go to the moon, I already know that I met the most amazing man alive and that space travel is possible.
