Spring has come to Ohio, after months of snow and ice and wearing five pairs of socks. The backyard is suddenly green. Birds sing on the fence outside my window. Don’t tread rhythmically, because the grass has been invaded by violets, dandelions, and little pink-and-white flowers (I think they’re called spring beauty). The trees blossom pink, purple, and white.

I don’t think I’ve ever loved spring so much. The fake news may have told you Florida has no seasons, which is a lie, but while we get rain in the spring, thunderstorms in the summer, hurricanes in the fall, and drizzle in the winter, Ohio gets fire-leaves and snow and robins. Which was especially unexpected. I’m used to getting robins around August.

In spite of the bees and baby leaves and ghost-white dandelion puffs, I’m mentally stuck in winter. My body is heavy, a slug is pasted over my mind. I lay in bed this morning, staring at the ceiling, wide awake but unable to move. Why can I not move? I asked myself. I felt rested and ready to go. But I lay there, scrunching up the covers and observing a spider-shaped mark on the ceiling. 

How unfair life is, I thought. When I was a kid, I could jump out of bed without thinking. After all, I had stories to write and games to play. I didn’t want to stay in bed then, I didn’t want to now, but I couldn’t make myself get up.

I couldn’t make myself get up.

I repeated that phrase, frowning at the fake spider. What did I mean, I couldn’t make myself? Was I tied to the bed? Glued to the mattress? Trapped somehow by a supermagnet? A brief investigation showed this was not the case. What then held me back? What was this force that moved like sludge in my veins, attacking me so that I collapsed on the couch when I should be making dinner, guiding me to my phone instead of my books, keeping me in bed when I needed to be up?

This sludge has many forms: laziness, executive dysfunction, overwhelm, depression. Had it struck me last year, I might’ve stayed in bed. But I live by myself now. I have school, I have cooking, I have laundry. It’s just not practical.

But, as I lay there still, I asked myself, Who am I to tell myself I can’t get out of bed? Ridiculous. I am capable of pushing off the covers, sitting up, and swinging my legs over the side. How entitled is it to think that’s too much work?

And so I learned a lesson about overthinking, but that’s for another day. I want to go back to spring.

You see, winter puts the world to sleep, and sometimes death. The trees drop their leaves in preparation, and the birds skedaddle south. But the leaves and birds come back on a regular schedule. Why not me?

Of course, the cure isn’t as easy as making myself get out of bed.

Or is it?

Back when it was cold and icy, I saw frosted violets poking out of lawns. Snow lay in drifts around them, and the violets themselves were probably already dead. But they came out, though the weather said no and didn’t back down. They came, and now I have to sidestep them on my way to the mailbox.

In the same way, I had to get out of bed when I didn’t feel like it. I have to put down my phone and do my school assignments and eat regularly, and it’s as painful and terrifying as pushing through soil to your certain death. I have plenty of dead-violet days. But I’m also seeing baby leaves growing green against the gray. Frosted violets lead to happy violets.

Look for the winter in your life and find some way to make it spring. If you feel yourself freezing over, make like a flower and grow on. Life isn’t for hunkering under the freeze. Life is for living.

L’Chaim!

Update: I have learned frost does not actually kill violets, which makes the analogy even better!