Stupid sexy winter

Winter is the worst season. It's so unnecessarily sexy. It's like having Valentines day 100+ days in a row. It's all snuggly, cuddly and romantic.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the cold just because it's cold. No one hates the cold more than me. Once that temperature drops under 60 degrees, I'm locked down and coated up for the next 4 months. It's miserable.
...but it's the kind of miserable you want to share with someone, unlike when it's hot.
It's pretty obvious to all us single folk that if you had someone to weather the weather with, it'd go from being the worst imaginable punishment to a world of absolute pleasure and romance.

So you have the unbearable, life-sucking cold and the constant in-your-face sexiness of winter. That's a double whammy of misery.

But now can I tell you something I love that's only half-way related to all of the aforementioned?

I love waking up at 5am, putting on my shorts and a t-shirt to go to the gym, and braving that 10-second walk to the car in ungodly temperatures. As much as I hate the cold, I weirdly savor that blast of painful, brutal cold first thing in the morning. It makes me mad, yet energizes me and gets me pumped to work out. I hate freezing my bottom off sitting on the ice-cold leather of my car. The drive to the gym is a mingling of pain, joy, and the will to survive. Everything in me is screaming that death is surely imminent, but my brain refuses to accept that and tells my heart to beat faster because we must persist!
I sing. Because the louder you sing, the warmers you get. Everyone knows that.
The wintery fingers of death begin to release their grip as warmth finally starts to spread through the car....which is about the time I pull into the gym parking lot and have to get right back out into the cold. But by the time I make it into the gym, I'm feeling pretty heroic for still being alive.
  
I love coming out of the gym and being blasted by that shock of cold air again. I always think there's no way it'll still feel cold to me with as sweaty and hot as I am, or if it's still cold, that it'll be refreshing and feel good. But no, when I step outside the gym doors, it's like God has decided that's a good time to teach me humility, and takes a swing at me with a blast of His coldest breath. Ah, I hate it! It's the greatest! 
I love the seeing the billows of smokey breath pouring out of my mouth after a hard work out. It makes me feel like a dragon. When it's drizzly like today, I imagine that each drop of rain sizzles and steams like an egg on a frying pan when it hits my skin. It makes me feel powerful, it makes me feel alive, it softens my heart with gratitude for such little joys.


I hate winter.