Snow.

I have been waiting for the first real snow of the year.

A few weeks ago, as my girlfriend left for her third shift job, there were a few flakes. Standing in the doorway watching her leave, I almost had the door relocked when she bombarded back through it, excited like a puppy. We stood there together and watched a few small flakes fall, smiling like idiots, but as suddenly as they appeared they stopped and we resumed normal activities. She eventually left for work and I stared out the window, pouting and hoping that more would fall.

Today, there were a brief few minutes of giant snowglobe-like snowflakes. I texted my girlfriend around fifty times (not much exaggeration!) but she was asleep so I stared out the windows at work with my coworkers, watching the big fat flakes fall first quickly then gracefully to the ground. It was beautiful.

I think the thing I enjoy the most about the snow is its ability to refresh. Not only is it fluffy and pretty, but it covers the ground entirely, leaving even the most mundane things looking brand new. No matter how ugly an object is, the snow will make it beautiful. No matter how broken, the snow will make it new. It transforms everything it touches.

So I wait. I Christmas shop. I bake cupcakes and clean the house and bide my time until the first real snow, knowing that my life and my universe and my world look so much different than they did at the last snow last year and my world will never be the same.