Snow winter and adulthood

When I was a child I loved loved loved snow...I remember the great snow storm of 1947 in NYC - which was just surpassed in 2006.... I loved running around in the snow, building snow forts and having snow ball fights.

This love of snow and winter took me to New England where I continued to love winters and lived through the blizzard of 1978.

Then many years later I went back to New England and started to dislike snowy winters..After a very cold spell out here in Oregon I think I have figured it out and it has to do with growing up and with the economy...

In New York and D.C. the snow did not stay on the ground very long. And in NYC my parents paid the heating bills and as all the moms in my area were stay-at-home types no one was concerned with snow days.

In Boston, there was snow but heating costs were low and except for the blizzard of 1978 - it was never a problem to get around.

In D.C. the snow is rarely around for any length of time and usually in small amounts. People there still panic at the thought of 1/2 inch so anything around one inch is a major emergency. But it melts quickly.

Then came Vermont - many winters lasted from September through June - or at least one needed the heat on at times during those months. And the snow? If it came in October or November it was on the ground until April and May.

As a skier I could go skiing but sometimes it was so so cold it was frostbite weather. Also the costs of heating had increased and as the adult I had to do the shoveling and shoveling and shoveling....

Now that I am on the other coast - I can go to the snow when I choose and I do that. Mt. Hood is pretty close, covered with snow and gorgeous! And when I get home, it may get cold and it may get very cold - but I know I won't have to wake up to the idea of shoveling two feet of snow in the morning. Yes the cost of heating is high but not as high as the East coast and winters here are shorter.

In my advancing older age I see now that my love of snow was the ability to go out and play in it - miss school because of it - but not to have to shovel it months on end.

I still love winter but have given up on the idea that I want to live in a very winter kind of place. The people who do that have my admiration....it's hard to deal with snow, ice and bitter cold for months on end... Maybe there is some good that comes of all that - but in my adulthood I have learned it is no longer my thing - it was a part of my childhood and my early adulthood and I can finally give up what I see now was a youthful fantasy - one I no longer wish to re-do.

Adultness

What are adults? Grown up children? Boring entities? Hmmm....Guess it depends on who is defining them.

When you were 10 - how old were your parents? Did you think of them as "old?" How old are you now? Is it near that age? And do you see yourself as old?

A friend of mine is turning 75 in March - I just had a birthday. We were talking about how old we were and why it seems so strange that our kids have aged but we had not - even tho we met 43 years ago! Yes - 43 years have gone by and there are markers to indicate that - but are we old? older? We laugh about this - it's an annual giggle - almost always on my and her birthday. It's become our January/March ritual.

I've re-connected with people I was friends with as a child and some from previous work situations - we all feel we are in better shape mentally and physically than we were way back when.. and looking at some old photos - it does seem true. Many of us have moved into different careers and lives than we had 30 and 40 years ago. Some of us have kids in their 20's and some have grandkids in their 20's.... at one point in our lives we shared a lot of similarities but now we live very different lives and do not have as much in common.

Yes adults do change - and we continue growing and changing - so after many years - there is a greater difference between adults of the same age than between children of the same age...