the power of perception

I’ve lived my entire life in the Midwest, which means living through the Midwestern winters. You get used to it.

But, one change. This is first winter in my life where I’ve been neither obese nor overweight. Like, this time last year, I was 75 pounds heavier, and a year before that, 135 heavier than I am now.

It is really. Really. Cold. Out. I never noticed before.

Walking outside feels like walking into a wall of razors.

Razors that are frozen.

Is this what winter always felt like for normal people? I used to look forward to winter, because it was the one time of year I could walk any distance without overheating. Short walks I would take without any coat at all, perfectly comfortable. Now, though…today I had to walk about half a mile outside. I had on three layers of shirts, a sweater, a heavy coat, scarf, gloves, hat, the works. By the time I got back inside, I still felt like I had been punched, repeatedly.

To put it in RPG terms, I lost my resistance to cold damage and my vulnerability to fire damage, but gained resistance to fire damage and vulnerability to cold damage. And probably a few additional points in my Constitution score (all that running…)

On the plus side, summer should be much more comfortable than it was before.

-JM