Spring awakening.

This winter has stretched out absurdly long. I'm beginning to feel the ice and snow settle and crystallize in my veins, turning me into an ice creature that longs for warmer days. I worry that, once those days come, it'll take my soul some time longer to thaw. I long for spring, the scent of warm rain, the green around me on the hiking trail. I need to get outside, to find myself lost and able to really contemplate life.

For all of the discussion of the "free man," we, as a whole, are chained beasts. We fool ourselves with this vision of freedom while we slave away, content to live our lives for the few minutes of the day when we truly feel free. What do we do with this freedom? We watch TV, subjecting ourselves to corporate interference that makes us feel "less" - less attractive, less intelligent, less worthy. We zone out, tune out, drop out of the moment. We aren't truly present in our lives, no matter how fast we run out of work.

Our lives are routine, a hamster on the spinning wheel. Eat, work, sleep, repeat. Connections are becoming fewer and more far between, mainly due to technology becoming our mode of communication. When you talk to someone via text message, can you see their face? Can you watch their eyes when they say something? Do they mean what they say or are they being untruthful? We become solitary creatures, no matter how many people we surround ourselves with. 

It worries me that I find myself with a harder shell, an awkward exterior unable to push through the initial discomfort and eye contact to make a deeper connection with people. I've set aside so many of my friends for the comfort of solitude, the ease of not having to make the right joke at the right time or feel like I'm being judged even when I'm not. I've settled uncomfortably into being a hibernating homebody but, with spring so close yet so far away, I feel the thaw begin. I only hope that I come out the same as I went in.