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Snow After Seventy

Central New York, just over a day since it was seventy degrees. 

Wait, it was seventy degrees yesterday morning. I went for a run with friends and it was almost too warm. Then this afternoon, on the way to Wegmans, snow flurried thick enough I couldn't see beyond the 481 overpass. 

My guess is that most of Syracuse isn't thrilled with this. A day like yesterday gets us thinking spring has arrived despite the calendar and our better sense. I don't listen to weather reports in part because I don't want to hear how terrible a day it will be just because it's not like yesterday. 

Sudden shifts in weather give me hope. Yesterday it was seventy and skies were blue. Now it's below freezing and the world is white. That sudden change is a wonder of Central New York. The skies are grey and that can be tough, but there is something in a snow flurry or storm that delights me still. 

It has me thinking how lives can change like the weather. I've been in the same job for seventeen years and would love some new adventure. I had dinner last night with a former colleague and she looked ten years younger, as if retirement led her to find her true self. I felt happiness radiate off her just as sure as I feel the furnace pushing warm air through the vent at my feet. I was happy for her and wondering how I might sail on the winds of change. 

For years I believed I was trapped and would remain in my job because I had waited too long to make a change. Then the world turns from freezing to seventy and back again and I believe in the powers of change and my own power to make changes. 

I don't know tomorrow's weather or if I'll be in a new job soon, but I was happy in yesterday's warmth and I'm just as happy in this snow. Maybe some new adventure will come or I'll make one. It may snow or thaw. Being okay with all of it begins with enjoying how things are right this minute and expecting things to become only better. 

It was seventy degrees yesterday morning. It's below freezing this afternoon. Anything at all seems possible for tomorrow. That's just the way it ought to be.