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I grew up in Austin Texas, where snow was rare. Kids loved it because aside from being fun to play in, half an inch of the stuff closed schools. Adults hated it because most of life came to a standstill and there were a lot of auto accidents and other problems because the city had neither the understanding nor the tools to deal with the stuff. And once I became an adult, I learned to dislike snow.
Since 2006 I’ve lived where it snows every year and since 2009 I’ve lived where the ground is white for about five months a year. And the hassle notwithstanding, I now like snow.
It certainly helps that I live where people have the equipment and knowledge to deal with snow. It also helps that I’ve gained the tools and understanding needed to handle snow. What I like about snow is how it transforms the world around me. It also transforms the people around me, changing how they think and act. It forces us to change gears and do different things, and I think that’s a good thing.
In the past, I disliked snow because I didn’t know snow. I had a taste of it, but that taste was the bad without the good. And, of course, some of the bad was only bad because my city and I were unprepared to deal with snow. I think we do this with other things in our lives: we get a limited, incomplete, inaccurate taste, and we decide we don’t like it, don’t need it, and don’t want it.
An obvious example of this is the woman who “doesn’t like sex”. Her dislike is based on a skewed experience, not a real understanding of what sex can and should be. For men, common examples are not liking non-sexual intimacy or disliking connecting by talking. Just like sex, these things can and should be enjoyable; if they’re disliked, it’s probably because of bad experiences that do not represent what those things can be.
I used to think I didn’t like snow. This year I was looking forward to it, even as I worked to get certain outside projects done before the snow stopped me. As the snow falls outside now – four and a half inches so far – I look out at the quiet white world and feel good about it.
What might you and/or your wife dislike because you’ve never experienced it as it can and should be?
Photo by Maria Vojtovicova on Unsplash
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