You woke up to the usual sights and sounds of your room. Wrapped in your sleeping bad, underneath your duvet, huddled next to Maria. You poked your head out from underneath the covers and watched your breath stream up into the air above you.
*sigh*
In preparation for your departure, you did a quick load of laundry the night before. Your wet clothes hanging randomly around your cold room. Well, if it’s not raining we can at least hang them on the line. They’ll be cold but they’ll dry, you said to yourself.
You grabbed your jacket, put on your boots and hat and had not even taken a full step outside when you stopped dead in your tracks.
La neige. Snow. The bane of your existence fluttering softly to the ground all around you. Snow is no longer beautiful to you. It reminds you of falling ash from an apocalypse. It reminds you of The Road. You sighed again and stepped back inside.
Last week was too good to be true. The temperature had reached at least 18 degrees C. Your flip flops came out, your sunglasses even. You went running. You went on daily walks. Life was getting better. What happened?
You really did not want publish another entry about how much you hate winter but there is nothing else to do. You have been practically sedentary since September and you’re just trying not to completely lose it. You’ve had one week of respite from freezing (and below) temperatures and unpleasant shit falling from the sky and it is not enough.
Way too much of your time has been spent huddled around a fireplace. Sure, you’ve read like 20 books, but most of your “traveling” has been a test of mental toughness (which you clearly have little of) and a test of just how physically uncomfortable you can be without crying (answer: not very).
You always seem to be waiting for something better….waiting for it to just get warm. Good god, you just want to be outside and enjoy it. You love being out doors, you love camping. You can’t wait to walk 20 kilometers and pitch a tent for the night, wake up to a sunrise over the mountains. Yes, a thousand times yes!
All you want to do is live outside. And experience a normal level of discomfort. In 4 months the worst thing that’s happened to you was getting step throat and your headphones breaking. But it seems like an emotional roller coaster.
All you want at this point is to be on the other side. You want this part of the trip to be a memory that you look back on and laugh at.
You are leaving tomorrow no matter what. You can’t postpone your hike any longer. Starting tomorrow you’ll be living outside for the better part of 40 days. You can’t let the weather dictate your experiences any more and you are actually quite terrified.
You just keep telling yourself you are hiking to Spring and you are traveling to summer. The only reason you are publishing this at all is so that you can re-read it when you consider complaining about how hot it is. If that is even possible.
Goodbye Winter.
You’ll update again in Spring.