The Ice Princess

You know, there was a time when I used to hate cold weather. Ithaca used to get numbingly frigid in winter, and this season of polar gloom would last for the better part of the year, starting in October and ending somewhere in April. I despised it like the oppressed. At times, when I was leaning into freezing, skin-numbing winds, I'd marvel like a damn fool at how anything could be so cruel and callous.

You see, my imagination personified the cold into a monster, one that I used to battle every day. I'd battle it stepping out of the house in the morning, feeling like I'd plummetted from my cosy bed into the lung-freezing arctic. Hell, I'd battle it touching a cold doorknob, swearing under my breath at how a single second of jiggling the metal made my fingers feel as if they would fall off in protest and run away.

However, for some reason, things have started to change now. Somehow, I don't dread the cold in the same way. This morning, for example, I didn't turn the heater on when I was driving to work. My hands got really cold, but I didn't mind. And yesterday, I actually opened the windows while driving. The cold air rushed into the car as if it were a vacuum, and settled everywhere...and it felt exhilarating.

I think the reason for the change is, again, my overactive imagination. Call me an idiot, but I've actually begun to feel a bit sorry for the cold. After all, I've been cursing it and telling it to go to hell for the past six years. What if I've been misunderstanding it the whole time? What if it's not a monster with stalactites hanging off its chin, but a beautiful ice princess? A sensitive, delicate ice princess, whom fate has handed the Midas curse - that of harming whoever she touches.

She's been shoved away all her life by scum like myself, hasn't she? And now, I can imagine her sitting on her iceberg, with her legs hugging her chest, weeping freezing tears into pale hands. How lonely must she be? How much in love must she be? After all, she welcomes me in her embrace every time I step outside. She snuggles up to me like a lost child. She tries desperately, with a lover's passion, to seep into my every pore. And her presence lingers even after I've entered the warm snugness of the indoors. I can feel it somewhere in my bones - a chill that just sits there, refusing to go away no matter how warm my surroundings are.

Every right now, that chill reminds me of her, you know...my ice princess. Like a tinge of guilt, it reminds me that she waits patiently outside, harkening for my footfall. I think of the way her caress will make my cheeks burn with icy fire, and the thought is too welcoming to resist. I reach for my jacket.

After all, how can I let love so intense go unrequited?

Ehh...frostbite's a small price to pay...mah icy lovah!