The Safety of Snow

I woke this morning to that strange muffled silence that tells me immediately it is snowing. Where, I live, in the middle of nowhere the snow is a form of insulation. It keeps me cocooned in the quiet and leaves me with the feeling there is no one else in the world but me. I have plenty of food in the pantry and a log burner full to the brim, so what to do with this unexpected day of leisure?

It is a day to relax and take stock. A day of contemplation; touching base with where I am in life and how much has happened to me in such a short space of time. As I set my alarm last night, ready for client work this morning, my mind wandered back to last September when I was first on my own. I had changed the sound of the alarm recently, because just to hear the alarm I first used after my husband left and I began my training dragged me straight back to the pain I felt then. Sometimes, you need a full stop in life to realise how far you’ve come. As I set the new alarm I remembered that time and was surprised to realise my feelings had changed. When the pain was raw I was sure it was so obvious everyone could see it in my face. Paul Simon’s song Graceland has a line: ‘losing love is like a window in your heart/everybody sees you’re blown apart’. That was exactly how I felt. The pain was physical and overwhelming. It coloured every sentence and every action.

Now I seem to have a protective layer around me – like a Ready Brek glow – that stops the pain being so immediate and obvious.

This physical barrier to the outside world teaches me a lesson. When my previous husband died I hated being alone. I could go out almost every night of the week, eat with friends, go to the cinema and go for weekends away. I was never short of people to do things with, but I had no one to do nothing with. No matter how good a time I had out and about, when I closed the door at the end of the day I was still alone. I didn’t like waking up in the night to an empty house, or having a house full of visitors knowing how empty the house would feel when they left at the end of the night. I had rarely been without a boyfriend from the age of 17 – I’d had periods of being single, but they were never for very long. I didn’t really know how to exist without someone special who loved me. This was a lesson I was going to struggle to learn.

In this enforced solitude of being snowed in, I have started to realise that some of the things I once dreaded are actually plus points. I am becoming accustomed and quite enamoured of silence. Sometimes, I even choose to switch off the TV or radio, and just read in the quiet next to the open fire. I start to look forward to coming home after a night out, putting pyjamas on and vegging on the sofa with the animals. I like that I know where things are – if the house is tidy when I go out, it is still exactly the same when I return home. Far from missing a master of the house, I am enjoying becoming master of my own house. I choose what and when I eat, what I watch or listen to, and how I spend my time. I can work as and when I feel like it, rather than having to fit it in round housework or cooking someone else’s tea. My recovery is entirely in my hands and becomes a much bigger priority to me. Being alone is not just acceptable; it has become ok, even preferred. After spending the last 15 years being married then divorced, married then widowed, married then separated, I can finally choose to have space to work out who I am, what is important to me and how I want life to be. The snow break has given me a clear and safe space to think about these things and realise that life is good, and even exciting. It has taken going nowhere to realise how far I have come.