I’ve lived in New England all of my 24 years, and every year, it’s the same song and dance: Winter is coming. Oh no! The snow! The roads! The cold! The only thing winter is good for is Christmas and the holidays! Gotta bundle up! People slip on ice all the time! People drive like morons! Winter is terrible!

But whenever the summer months roll around, with talks of the beach and going outside and the warmth and the sun and all that, I long for winter the most. The summer sun is harsh on my fair skin, requiring either gratuitous amounts of sunscreen or gratuitous layering, and I usually end up burnt regardless. Half of my wardrobe is fall/winter clothing, as those are the cutest and most flattering things in my wardrobe. The air is so dangerously thick that some days I’m advised not to go outside or I see my asthmatic mother wheezing and grasping for her inhaler. The beach is a whole other beast and shortly after going I get blistering sunburns.

Whenever I think of winter I think of beauty, of ice clinging to tree branches and when the sun hits them just right, they’re lit ablaze. When I think of winter, I think of snow angels, snow sculpture, snowball fights. I think of hot cocoa with a minty twist, of gingerbread, of families gathered around the living room and forgetting for maybe a minute that the world is terrible, because there’s lasagna and garlic bread and laughs and jokes to be had. When I think of winter, I think of the security that two or three layers of clothing afford.

But really, all of this isn’t to knock either summer or winter. It’s not to knock any season, really. The point of the matter is looking at things in a positive light. After all, even the newscasters get sick of summer when their AC breaks, and the kids get sick of the outside when it’s hard to breathe. And when that happens, you look to winter in a longing way�. Even I get sick of winters where there’s snow, snow, snow, and you can’t get to your classes because someone didn’t shovel the walkway. When your boots aren’t as waterproof as they ought to be and the heat broke.

There’s only so many times you can hear “it’s gonna be a Subaru summer!”, and only so many times you can hear The Carol of the Bells. There’s only so many times you can get a nasty sunburn, or a particularly itchy mosquito bite, and only so many times you can go outside and realize the air is so cold that it hurts to breathe.

If every day were sunshine, the plants would shrivel up from thirst. If every day were rain, they would drown. Balance is the key in all things. Finding the merits of a blizzard can keep you going, just a little bit longer.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go looking online for some new winter boots. And sometime in February, I might start looking for a new swimsuit.