At the beginning of this month, I went to Chicago. It was cold, grey, and rainy and only 40 degrees every day. When I came home it was 70 and sunny. I was sweating as I ran to catch the airport bus.
Winter here at home in sunny San Diego is extremely different from winter nearly everywhere else, but there are certain things that ground me in the season. In my backyard grows an orange tree that’s been here since we moved in over 15 years ago. Unless you have an orange tree you may not know—considering markets tend to have most fruit at all times of the year—that oranges are in season in the winter. They seem like they’d be a summer fruit, or at least spring because of their bright look and taste, but they’re at their peak late December through March: the coldest time of year.
I know it’s winter, not when the skies grow cloudy and grey, but when I sink my teeth into the flesh of an orange. It reminds me of a winter at home, carrying bags of oranges into the house and making marmalade with my mom. As much as I love the idea of a white, snowy Christmas, there’s nothing like the soft smell of orange blossoms on my skin.
The second way I know winter is upon us is the sunset. I never realized how much of a sunset person I am until the last few years. (This makes me think of a scene from Gilmore Girls when Paris says: “How do I know you’re not one of those people that gets pretty happy looking at a sunset? How do I know what your barometer for being pretty happy is?”. I’m definitely one those people Paris is talking about and this makes me laugh). I can stare out a sunset for hours, and once on a train ride, I pretty much did.
Lately, I’ve been looking at them through the upstairs window while I write, noticing all the differences between this season and the last. A winter sunset is very different from an autumn one, not just in color, but feel. An autumn sunset is characterized by it’s intense hues of orange and pink. It burns across the sky until the night grows darker and the flames fade, leaving a smolder of purple in the farthest edges of the horizon. But a winter sunset is soft. Shades of baby blue, pink, and yellow, swirl like watercolors. It’s never harsh or demanding. It’s simply there until it’s not.
Each of these things are just some of the little joys of winter. They’re starkly contrasted by the harsh weather that usually characterizes this season. I find it funny—maybe wondrous?—that there can be so much softness and beauty in a season that’s normally seen as cold, dark, and unforgiving. And it’s definitely all of those things, but it’s also somehow bright and joyous and soft. It’s contradictory, much like people and relationships and life.
I guess it’s only fitting then, that we’d be especially drawn to reflecting on our lives—the good and bad, the people and things, that now live in our past—this time of year.
But, we especially tend to be fixated on the past in the winter because it gets dark early, the cold pushes us inside, and the holiday season is constantly sprinkling messages of love and togetherness into our minds. There isn’t a single season more saturated in love-centric content than the winter—that would include Valentine’s Day since February is still technically winter, but I would even argue Christmas has more “lovey-dovey” content than Valentine’s with all its Hallmark “boss girl meets small town boy” movies. However, I don’t want to talk about romantic love specifically, but rather relationships and togetherness as a whole.
It’s almost impossible not to think about these things during the winter when our amount of time spent indoors increases and we’re left with little else but our thoughts. It makes people do things they might not otherwise have done, like reach out to an ex or an estranged family member, or even try to make new friends.
Each of these acts is in direct conflict with a mindset that’s been circulating on social media in recent years that preaches “protecting your peace”. It touts the adage that you “don’t owe anyone anything”, and while this may be true to some extent, it’s also simplistic and harsh.
In certain situations, I can see it’s use. Sometimes a relationship/friendship is too far gone to continue it, leaving us with only these simple solutions in order to move forward. But, in many cases, it’s become so widespread that a person can use it to ghost someone they disagree with. We can say they weren’t listening or that we didn’t feel heard, and so we decide to abandon the conversation or relationship—honestly, a valid reason in some cases. But it also cuts us off from difficult or even uncomfortable conversations, depriving us of these needed experiences.
If we only ever talk to people who are just like us, who always agree with us, are we any better than those who don’t listen when we too try to speak?
Do we even owe it to each other to listen?
Do we owe anyone anything?
***
A few years ago, in the winter of 2021, I cut off a relationship with someone I was very close with. He was my boyfriend, friend, and was deeply rooted in my past, but we had gotten to a point where our relationship was so irreversibly damaged, we could no longer go back. Or at least, I couldn’t. So, with much argument from him, I tossed it all away and never looked back.
This doesn’t mean I didn’t wonder if I made the right decision, that I never woke up in the middle of the night wondering if he was okay. I just never reached out.
At some point, I did tell him I forgave him and then immediately regretted it because I only said it to make him feel better and wasn’t in a place to actually give that forgiveness. But, I knew I eventually would, so I left it alone. And, of course, I did. I just didn’t tell him this time. I never told him that, in some ways, I understood. That I no longer blamed him—at least not completely—but also accepted some of the blame myself. I never told him any of this because although I forgave him, I could never find a way to forget.
I’ve often wondered if I owed it to him to tell him all of that. Whether I was actually withholding it out of spite, or if I really felt it no longer mattered. For a time, I felt guilty, like I was a bad person for not giving him the comfort of my real forgiveness. And for a while, especially the next winter, it haunted me. The things left unsaid hung in the air like spirits unable to pass from this this life into the next.
It’s much the same with uncomfortable or embarrassing interactions. We wonder if we looked stupid or made a complete ass out of ourselves and then agonize over whether they liked us. It influences our actions, causing us to run away or over-explain ourselves. But growing comfortable in the inevitability that we will be disliked at some point or another, gives us the freedom to pick and choose our battles.
I’ve made myself sick over the thought that someone, somewhere might not like me. I’ve twisted myself into knots some nights as I lie in bed unable to stop myself from going through each interaction of the day, looking for anything that might indicate there was something wrong. I’m sure most people deal with this and the random visions of embarrassing moments that always seem to jump out as soon as we let out guard down.
I’ve felt haunted by my mistakes. I’d often flinch at the thought of them and close my eyes, willing the apparition to disappear. This happened quite often that following winter, after everything was said and done. All the usual little joys of the season turned into triggers of the past, bringing everything back in shivers of guilt. I felt I had betrayed him—my ex. Partly because I was not yet over him and everything that happened, but also because I didn’t know how to be okay with the idea of not being liked. I thought I owed him something more because he had once meant so much.
Over time I became comfortable in the understanding that my ex and others might not like me. He might hold it against me that I couldn’t find a way to at least keep our friendship alive or that I never reached out to see if he was okay. But, I can’t control what he thinks of me. I can’t control what anyone thinks of me or how they feel or react. Their thoughts and feelings are their own, and they have every right to them.
This doesn’t mean we can go around with no regard for our words and actions, but at the end of the day, we cannot take responsibility for another’s emotions: something we have little control over and attempting to take control of would be a manipulative violation. Plus, tiptoeing around, hoping to please everyone at all times, is an impossible, unfair task. Not just to ourselves but others as well because we should all be allowed to feel what we feel.
I don’t know if my ex dislikes me or not. He may have come to his own version of peace with the situation, but whatever he feels now is valid, just no longer my concern. Parting ways was a kindness for us both. We were both stuck in the same place, going around and around with only each other to haunt. We didn’t know how to let go. In this case, leaving was the only option left to explore.
However, different relationships/friendships will always require a different lens. We can’t look at everything the same way because that would deny it of everything that makes it what it is. The little nuances of our relationships with our parents, siblings, friends, even the random stranger we say hello to every day, deserve to be considered from their own unique perspective.
It’s easy to apply a catch-all phrase to the entirety of our lives and all our interactions, but much harder to take even just a moment or two to remember that, although our thoughts and feelings may be complex and cavernous and as contradictory as the brightness of an orange in the bleak of winter, there’s also nothing more human than that.
As hard as it might be, we should embrace that more often.
🍊I would love to know…🍊
What are your signs that it’s officially winter/what are your favorite things about winter?
What are your favorite winter/holiday activities? I really want to try making those dried orange garlands/ornaments
Do you like oranges? What about sunsets? And how about piña coladas and gettin’ caught in the rain? lolololol
1. Orange slices at half time, the best. 2. Yeah I love sunsets, the right one with the right person will stay with you forever 3. I’ll take two Pina Coladas and one for the road thank you... great story. Forgiveness is an excellent topic, and so valuable too.
I never knew that about oranges! I tend to associate them with summer but weirdly enough I think I do eat them more in the winter because I’m paranoid about getting sick and want to stock up on my vitamin C lol. The photo you chose is especially striking, I love the contrast! And I love how beautifully you described sunsets :) your connection of the contradictions in winter to the contradictions of the human condition, particularly with relationships we can’t mend anymore, especially struck a chord with me. I love the winter for its cold weather and snuggly vibes but I also do find myself getting more pensive and melancholic during this season, and I tend to isolate myself more. Sometimes it’s difficult but I also love it? I went through an especially difficult winter last year and I can feel some of its echoes as we head into the season this year but much like the oranges on the snowy tree, I feel that something good will come from it.