Back in November, Becky wrote about dealing with winter weather the year after a winter-related accident and breathing through her apprehension. I wrote a brief comment to her then, and have been thinking about it since. At the time I was anticipating snow, and breathing. Then it actually snowed.

I sat inside for days, watching the snowglobe outside. It was gorgeous and fascinating, and I prattled on to Mister Husband about it all. But I didn’t set foot outside, not once. Last year, I was outside with a camera during the first snow. I waxed poetical about going out to meet the winter. During the first flurries of this year, I only looked from behind a window.

Finally, Mister Husband decided that this was the saddest thing that a person who loves Minnesota winters as much as me could do. So he prodded and complained and made me get suited up and put me in the car and took me down to the same lake I photographed last year. By that time the walkways and parking lots were good and slick. He held my hand as I got out of the car and kept an arm around me as we walked along. I didn’t fall. And soon, I didn’t need the reassurance in order to keep walking. I was fine, and he wandered off to take photographs.

So now I’m pretty much okay with going out. There’s some apprehension as I step out the front door, since there’s usually quite a bit of melt there. My actual process of making my way around has changed, though. I’m never out without tightly laced boots with lugged soles. (When we were shopping the other day, my friend from North Dakota was wearing platform flip-flops. But that’s another post altogether.) I used to stride along slick-ish walkways, but now I take baby steps. I don’t stomp through the snow the way I used to, either. The slush and plowings collect in the gutters, making it difficult to see where the curb is. I get ridiculously nervous about stepping off, and have been touched at how supportive my friends are about it. One always stomps around to flatten the collected snow and find the curb for me, and both she and another one have, on various outings, held my hand while I stepped off into a pile of slush.

I still love winter, and am upset at the lack of sub-zero days so far this season. But this physically cautious person is not the person I used to be. I always prided myself on swashbuckling my way along through any sort of weather, and now I’m brought up short. But I’m outside, and that’s something. I really want to learn to snowshoe, and plan on it next winter when my ankle is stronger. Perhaps the rest will come in time.