Shimmering shards of stories have been coming to me lately. Bits and pieces of fleeting ideas, glimmering in and out of my peripheral. I will start to write a post, begin crafting these thoughts into tangible form, but they fall away from me. My mind wanders, and off with the cold wind float my efforts, however small. I fight the chaos, but some ideas are simply not ready to be brought to life. Perhaps they never will be. Today, I rebel against these scattered thoughts. I will finish this post, god damn it, even if I have to scrape up every last transient word with a dustpan.

I recently travelled to Merritt Island, Florida with my boyfriend and his family. (She looks to the sky and squints; pale fingers clench around the fading remains of her vacation recap post.) Overall, it was wonderful to have some leisure time, despite some unexpected setbacks. I did some swimming, some reading, some shopping, and a fair amount of adventuring. I found meaningful trinkets, made meaningful memories, and spent time with the people I love. It was warm enough, beautiful, and absolutely, wonderfully devoid of any snow.

The sun, however, teamed up with my medication to scorch the living daylights out of my delicate, fair visage. I learned the hard way that the new meds I started taking make me more photosensitive. Despite quite a few days spent battling anything between persistent discomfort and searing pain, I still managed to have a good time. It was vacation. Need I truly say more?

Now, I look outside and I see hills upon hills of white fluffy bullshit. I don’t hate winter per say, and snow is beautiful as it falls, but I don’t always do too well in the cold, and I get a little stir crazy. I take after my dad in that the winter is the perfect breeding ground for my depressive tendencies. I get sad for no reason. Stare outside and desperately wish for warmth, blossoming trees, fresh air. Who needs serotonin when you have cripplingly bleak landscapes full of white voids and dreary beige grass?

My inspiration is fleeting, as should be clear by my lack of activity on this blog this month. In the winter, that motivation is even harder to find. I can physically feel the inspiration flowing into me when I step outside on warm days. While obviously it’s not impossible for me to be inspired during these darker times, I confess it is significantly more difficult. I draw energy from nature, and not being able to get outside regularly takes its toll on my mental wellbeing. I get exhausted. And god, I’m tired of being tired.

With Spring comes the promise of many beautiful things. The end of the semester, the start of the MLB season, nice weather, pretty flowers. I’ve always wanted to try gardening, but I was never disciplined enough to keep up with it. This year, however, I’ve got a good feeling about it and have decided I’ll make another attempt. I have some flower seeds picked out already, and I can almost fell the dirt on my hands. I swear I can smell the soil.

Soon, I will be able to spend more time outside, both alone and with those dear to me. I look forward to it, and hope to make the most out of the Spring and Summer. Baseball games, bonfires, camping, walks in the park… Perhaps, with the assistance of these precious outdoor experiences, I will be able to pull all my fragments of ideas together into something worth reading. In the end, that’s what we writers aim to do.