This winter I passed through something I had never experienced in my life — minus thirty-five degrees. When the heavy snow and cold came in together, simply turning up the electric heater was enough to trip the breaker on the meter outside. So I learned to keep the temperature just below the threshold, walking that line carefully. And still, several times each night, I pulled on my coat and went out into the frozen dark to press the reset button and bring the power back.
The harder the winter, the more desperately you wait for spring.
There are seasons in a life that work the same way. Failure and self-reproach. Rejection, isolation, betrayal, loneliness. Anger. The cold comes from inside and outside at once, and something in you contracts, goes still, begins to freeze. What keeps a person going until spring — what functions as the reset button in those seasons — is sometimes just the quiet solidarity of someone who stays near without needing to speak. And sometimes it is a single sentence, carrying warmth across the distance between two people.
I trust you. I respect you. You are more than you think you are. You are precious. I forgive you. I love you. I am with you.
One word of encouragement at a time, we press the reset button on each other’s winters. And the season turns. It always turns.