The Only Way Out Is Through

I hate winter.

I grew up in the southern part of Florida, just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean. My childhood was drenched in endless sunshine, flowers that never faded, and clear, turquoise ocean waves. My surroundings were, in a word, idyllic.

My home was green and warm all year long, without a season when everything was dead and gray. We regularly went to the beach on Christmas Day. (We had a hard freeze just once in my memory, sometime in the early nineties. It was so wildly out of the norm that the weather was a state emergency. I, however, remember enjoying the novelty of it, wading through my backyard kiddie pool in bare feet to break the thin layer of ice off the top of the frigid water.)

For the first two decades of my life, I lived in the same house. I had the same bedroom with the same stickers on the windows and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling that had been there ever since I was a small child. I never moved even once until I got married at the tender age of twenty, and even then I was only in the next town over. I’d never developed a tolerance for change and fallow seasons.

Now I live in South Carolina, where the weather is still relatively mild but seasons vary.

One winter day a few years ago, it was about 35 degrees outside and raining. It was the kind of day that made you want to curl up in bed with a book, some coffee, and fluffy socks. Against all reason, I instead chose to go hiking. I bundled up as best I could (which was rather poorly, as it turned out) and set out for one of my favorite trails. On a steep descent down the first hill, I noticed the dead and brittle shells of Queen Anne’s lace lining the trail as a cold wind swirled fiery-colored leaves around my feet. Just a few months before, I had climbed that very same hill after a swim in the river, surrounded by an abundance of freshly bloomed Queen Anne’s lace, darting hummingbirds, and the oppressive heat of the southern sun.

The winter-bare forest offered little protection against the rain, and fallen leaves created a thick carpet to wade through. I soon reached my favorite spot beside the river only to find the water rushing several feet higher than I’d ever seen. The rocks I usually hopped across to reach a tiny island refuge were completely submerged, and the ravages of the flooding showed in fallen trees and ruined foliage. I felt a sharp stab of sadness at the destruction. That spot had been a place of constancy for me, a place where I could sit on a rock in the middle of the rushing waters and feel at peace. In the summer months, I would visit it often to swim, wade, and lounge on the rocks like a mermaid in the sun. But now it felt forever altered.

For so many years, winter found a way to break my heart.

I tried to combat the cold and the dark and the gray by listening to ocean waves in my office, cranking up the heat, shining UV lights on my pallid skin, and on one desperate occasion, even snorkeling in my bathtub. (True story.)

What I was really trying to do was run away from sadness. I was trying to run away from change. I wanted to avoid melancholy so badly that I would do almost anything to resist it. I had not yet learned the critical, life-or-death art of allowing myself to sit in my own feelings, even when they hurt.

It took me about thirty-one years to learn that the only way out of sadness, grief, and pain is by going through them. Thirty-one years of always “looking on the bright side” had its charms, but by refusing to acknowledge and process my more unpleasant feelings, they only found new and creative ways to manifest themselves.

Sadness and grief don’t disappear because you refuse to acknowledge them; they just come out sideways.

If you’ve ever given birth, you know all about this. When I went into labor with my son, I planned to be zen about it. I had read all about hypnobirthing, the Bradley Method, mindfulness, and experiencing contractions as “waves” of pressure instead of pain. I had essential oils, a soothing playlist, a birthing ball, and a yoga mat in the delivery room with me—all that natural hippie stuff. Imagine my surprise when on hour fifteen of back labor with a ten-pound, five-ounce baby, I started saying things like “I can’t do this” and “Just talk to me about epidurals.”

The pain was astonishing. It knocked the wind out of me. But even though I believed at that moment that I truly couldn’t do it, I was doing it. No matter what, that giant baby was coming out, and I needed to surrender and let it happen. The pain was outlandish but temporary. The only way out was through.

While winter will never be my favorite season, I’m learning to lean into it more now. I’m learning that fallow seasons are an important part of life—a cleansing break amid growth and abundance. Things die, but they die to make way for new life. For fresh growth. A new perspective when the days grow longer again and buds of green burst out of the frozen ground. I didn’t learn to be okay with winter until I learned to be okay with my own feelings, the good and the bad.

After a few warmer months, I visited my favorite spot by the river again. It wasn’t exactly like it was before, but it was beautiful again. The grasses had returned. The new spring leaves offered dappled shade. I could hop from rock to rock with ease. All was not lost. It was different, but it was still good.

Kimberly Poovey is a writer, speaker, wife, and over-caffeinated toddler mom. After 10 years in the nonprofit world, she now writes full-time. You can find her on Scary Mommy, The Mighty, The Natural Parent, Parent Co, and Her View From Home. She loves Jesus, long walks on the beach, honey habañero lattes, and Zoloft. Her website is kimberlypoovey.com.

Photograph © Denys Nevozhai, used with permission