I say I hate the dark winter months, I say I hate the dim lighting of the sun on the ice as I drive to school. But as a wake-up to a blinding light hitting my face through my halfway broken window shades, I know that all of what I say is a lie. In six months, I will say the opposite, and instead I’ll say something along the lines of missing the blaring sun against the front of my car, blinding my vision, on the way to school. Why can I never seem to be satisfied?
In the summer months, I’m constantly thinking about how I miss the cold and how I would beg to walk into the school on a dark, winter morning, into the warm light of the school building. I miss being greeted by friends as they pass by in the hallway. No matter the season, no matter the time, there is always something missing. It seems as though I’ll never seem to be satisfied with my life.
But even in the nights of the present, I sit in my room, having to put my fan in my window, while bugs enter through, greeting me in the night. To still be too hot for anyone’s own good. When I wake in the early morning before the sun makes its entrance, I find myself deep in my sheets, being too cold for my own good. It seems as though equilibrium is never fully equal, like it promises to be.
Conversely, during the period on the other end of the calendar, I find myself yearning for the long days of the summer, lying by the pool, and not sitting in class as I watch the wet, clumpy snow fall on the ground in a way that resembles the way a person would fall to the ground. I don’t think about my room being far too cold in the mornings in the summer, or the bugs that will inevitably leave red marks on my skin. I can only find the positives, but why can I not be satisfied in the moment?
I yearn for what I can’t have; as of right now, I crave the touch of the soft snow against my face, walking in the snow on my way to enter the warmth of the dimly lit school. Not the humid heat trapping my body, wrapping me up in an inescapable cocoon, that has no source of refreshment. I ache for the dark mornings, when I barely see the sun on my drive to school, going well under the speed limit because of the slick ice on the freshly snow-covered roads.
I’ve only just started to realize this about myself, and I don’t necessarily view this as a negative aspect to my mindset. To put it in simpler terms, I look forward to, not yearn for, the next steps in my life, instead of hyperfixating on the present. I look at how my life will improve in the next six months and how different life will be. I really do wish that this trait of mine stays the same, and that I continue to appreciate the things that are just out of my grasp.
