February

I once lamented to a friend how much I hate February: it's the shortest month, and yet the longest; it's deep winter blues; it's uncomfortable, what with Valentine's and all that, the skin tightened from winter's dry, and the body craving the sun.  I've long held a prejudice against this month, and it is only this year that I actually took the time to think back on February and where this deep seated resentment comes from.

February, for me, is a month that has brought fundamental shifts to my life. It is a month of change, but so deep that I don't see it manifest until much later, and these changes are seismic and cataclysmic in their trajectory.

My first heartbreak happened on Valentine's day when, after a rather tumultuous week and one of my first true acts of teen rebellion with me facing the consequences, I got a phone call telling me that we were through and later that day a box of my stuff on the porch.  The sight of that teddy bear perched on top still makes me sad (and a bit relieved in hindsight) for fifteen-year-old me. It crushed me, but my mother made me pull myself together, go to school, to Saturday school (not as exciting as The Breakfast Club) and then to the Valentine's dance later that day. I remember my father, in trying to impart some wisdom, tell me that "these things happen in life," and my response was "yeah, but I expected better--I didn't think he'd be a coward and break up over the phone." Perhaps this was one of those moments when I look back and realize that people so rarely do what we expect them to or want them to. And, like most first loves, I am so glad this heartbreak occurred, that it began to build something in me that made me tougher, perhaps a bit crueler, with an odd mix of reckless caution and cynicism.

I made it a mission to break hearts, not have mine broken again.

The year I graduated high school, my graduation gift from my parents was a trip to Alaska with my father--in February, no less. And I fell in love with the wildness, with the mountains, with the vastness and my smallness. It would set me on a path to seek this, to make it mine.  Colorado gave me mountains and the remote, tiny life, and it was wonderful. Fifteen years later, I found my way back to Alaska, and each day I am overwhelmed by this place.

Later that month of that year, Scott entered my life.

There are other Februaries, too, that have left their indelible marks on my life.

These are wonderful things, truly, but they created deep changes and moved my life in ways that were not easy or comfortable. Deep in winter, they begin to put down their roots.

And now, in February again, I am faced with a new trajectory that takes me back into an office job, in a field I never dreamed I would work in, doing work that I honestly am not sure I even understand how or what to do. And that's okay. As I have in the past, I face this head on, inviting it even as I fear it, and shivering with the cold dark that marks these days.