Dubious Quality

I've never been able to understand why the cold and snow bother me so much. Annoying, yes, but it's something more than that. 

I think I understand now. 

What cold and ice and bitter temperatures do is make everything a little harder. It's harder to get out. It's harder to walk outside. It's harder to do everything. 

Because of that, you do fewer things. You don't work out as often, or for as long. You don't go places as frequently. You spend time planning how to avoid going outside. 

It makes your world feel much smaller. 

For an introvert/writer, this is particularly deadly, because I try keep my life small by design. I feel most creative in a small world, and while it's hard to admit, I feel safer, too. It's already as small as it should be, though, so when winter makes it smaller, it emphasizes all my tendencies to hole up and hide. 

I definitely need to live where the world feels big, and I can pick and choose, instead of somewhere that makes my preferred-size world feel even smaller.