Only Winter

    I am glad of my hat today, so I can hide the vulnerability I know must be so apparent in my eyes to anyone who bothers to look. I know what it is. It is fear. Fear of the encroaching winter with its cold, grey days, long frigid nights, and the demons that seem to thrive in such a climate. Reminding me too easily of past winters that were cold, dark, and achingly lonely. Fear that I may have said too much, or too little. Fear that I am heading down a path destined to circle me right back to where I was before, back to my strange aloneness, my solitude. Fear that history will repeat itself. I fight the urge to flee, retreat, hide, protect myself. I feel a chink opening in the armor I have worked so hard to construct, allowing my vulnerability to rise to the surface, leaving me open to a coup de grace.
    Brain assures me that the fears of today are merely vapors rising off the surface of fatigue, sleeplessness, restlessness. Brain knows how easily I become fragile, brittle, vulnerable, especially at this time of year, and even more so when I have started to inch my way out on a limb. Brain has kept me reined in quite well these last few months, despite my Leap Before I Look nature, urging caution, maturity, some iota of restraint. Maturity and restraint, it almost makes me laugh. But it has not been easy, and is likely a causal link between restlessness and fatigue, as I try to do too much in too little time.
    As is my nature, I flay myself open, looking for forensic evidence, the root of my angst. Honestly, I cannot readily identify the cause.  As always, there is some stress to life, but it is negligible. I am content with myself, happy with myself, not reliant on anyone else to reach a state of bliss. Brain, Body, and Spirit are all healthy and happy. I am not looking down the barrel of a long, cold, winter alone, instead I have found a possible kindred spirit, Heart is happy. So what then? Everything is falling so neatly into place, smooth and sweet.
    Is it just the coming of the cold? Could it be so simple a trigger? But the Cold reminds me so much of my first winter in my little home, when the nights were freezing, and I was struggling to fight clear of the abyss that nearly claimed me. Cold, dark, alone, exhausted, tormented by demons. I begin to think that my fear is linked to the cold, fear of finding myself returned to that bleakness, PTSD being triggered by cold hands and feet. But I am much more than I was then; more confident, more self assured, more resilient, stronger. Since then I have reclaimed my sense of self, my  integrity, my sense of self worth. I have healed myself, and come through scarred but strong, solid, balanced. If it is just the cold, then there are remedies for that; a blazing fire, hot tea, warm hands, warm heart. My fear is unfounded, it is not the abyss looming, it is only winter.