Relationships of Snow

Today is January 26, 2011. However, if you were to ask any single person in the Fairfax County area, he or she would say the same thing: today is a snow day. The first snow day of the year. Surprisingly, it had not snowed on my birthday! That is surprising because, until this year, it has snowed on my exact birthday for the last five years (not approximately, but at the least). And with my birthday have passed comes a mind-boggling truth. I, Ella Marie DaCosta Cajayon, am 18. Eighteen. Whether in number form, word form, or spoken aloud, that fact has not sunk in, not even a little. But I will bring up that subject later.

Back to the snow day... it is actually snowing as I speak! Or type, I guess? And that is just it. With the arrival of snow comes this spectacular feeling. A feeling unlike any other; a sight unlike any other. The sky is painted a heavenly white, dropping speckles of snowflakes on the ground. But what is truly remarkable is the spontaneity. The unpredictable mystery of the actually arrival of the snowfall. Regardless of whether your local weatherman predicted it or not, the sight is still astoundingly ravishing.

Kind of like relationships? Like snow, relationships have the whole package. They leave one with a feeling unlike any other, and a sight unlike any other. This last year, people have come into my life like snowflakes on the ground. Completely unpredictable. Snowfall can vary in time. Some are dusting's; some are blizzards. Relationships can vary in time too. Some last a little while; and some stick around. And as snow melts, relationships end.

Relating to my own life, I can count how many relationships have ended, how many snowfalls have melted. So I must ask, why do we wear our pajama pants inside out, flush ice cubes down the toilet, and cross our fingers in anticipation for more? What is this obsession with snow if it melts? What is this obsession with relationships if they go? Bottom line is, beyond the insanity and absurdity, people love snow. People love to watch it fall, and build snowmen and snow angels with their very own hands, minds, and hearts. And in a sense, people do build relationships with their own hands, minds, and hearts as well. But do people love snow like they love relationships knowing there is an expiration date? After all, while snow melts, snow arrives once again as do relationships come and go.

Now back to my birthday. It is sad to think that the people I spent my 17th birthday with are not the same people who stayed with me through my 18th birthday. Just like snow, those relationships melted in time. And as the year lingered, I felt weak without the people that had melted away. But last weekend, on my 18th birthday, the people who were there for me proved the very reason why relationships are worth the risk after all. Just like snow, you love relationships, even with the knowledge that it may not last forever. And what a perfect way to start my new life, as 18; watching the snow fall as new relationships arise. I survived the blizzard of relationships last year. And most certainly, I can conquer the blizzard again if I must.

"Winters come, my love the winters go and time stacks up in piles like winter snow. And everything you love and hold so dear, it won't really matter when we disappear."
-Ingrid Michaelson