When it was winter it was winter forever, it had always been winter and it would always be winter. The bleakness of it, the relentless overcast, the ugliness of yellow snow, black ice, gray icicles dripping from the eaves and in doorways. And yet you chose this, and there were small pleasures: snow piled on the heads of statues, the swoopmarks of mittens on car hoods, and the cozy sweet warmth of indoors, watching snowfall through a window, being safe. It was never your favorite season but it had some nice bits. And it was going to be winter forever, whether you liked it or not.
And then suddenly spring, rebirth, awakenings. The shock of buds unfurling, light warm rains that misted your hair, fluffy bunnies and chicks and a near-cloying sweetness that you, with your memory of tears frozen in your eyelashes and one foot still in the snowpile of winter, viewed with something between wonder and suspicion. But it was never going to be summer, never again, never, and sometimes at night the empty cold of winter swirled in, a dust cloud of snow, and things too early planted died in the frost.
And now here is summer, predicted for you for years against your brave smile and your insistence that winter was forever, and part of you still doubts, still wearing winter boots that are worn at the heels and scraped at the toes, watching the girls in their summer dresses parade by and it's very nice for them but you have learned to trust the wardrobe of winter too well to let go of it too soon, and yet you find yourself thinking of changing over your clothes, putting sweaters into cedar and mothballs, you find yourself thawing out just a bit more every day, opening the curtains to let in actual light that shines sometimes as long as all day. Here is a summer you never thought would come: this is a good thing.
And yet your winter heart. And yet you scan the horizon for clouds, find them and stare at them with... what? A child's rage at the unfairness of it: can't I even just for five minutes have an unbroken blue sky, a hot trickle of sweat down my back, a pink in my cheeks that isn't chapping and burst blood vessels? Child, it has been winter for half your life. Give things a little time. Go buy some new shoes, for summer's sake.