Hearty or Stupid?

This week I had my third root canal and we got our sixth major winter storm. (The snow pile in our driveway is over my head). I'd be frowning if it didn't hurt my face so much. I know I like to complain, but come on, even an eternal optimist would at some point say, "Enough!"

This is exactly why I don't think the first snowfall is ever "pretty"...while others see lovely sparkling flakes floating down from the heavens, I see the world a few weeks later covered in muddy, icy mounds of despair. Optimism isn't something I've ever been good at, but I'm not quite in a pit of despair yet (it's more like a giant pothole), and our vacation to San Diego next week is the only thing sparing me from burying myself under the eight-foot mound of snow outside.

We New Englanders try to make ourselves feel better about being trapped in horrible weather by calling warm-weather people thin-blooded wimps, but you know what they really are? Smart!

I was raised in a hearty, cold place; I was raised to think I didn't deserve to be warm and comfortable all the time, or know what the sun felt like except for a few glorious fleeting months of the year. Winter is here to toughen you up...make you remember you can't have it too easy. Well, I get it! I'm miserable. It's not easy; it's not fun; life sucks. So how long do we have to do this for? How many more back-breaking storms before spring?

Let's face it, there is hearty, and there's just plain stupid.