The ‘Bomb Cyclone’ That Broke Me

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I am finally ready to admit that I hate the winter.

This is a big deal for me. It took the recent “bomb cyclone” to put me over the top. Every year brings at least one storm that causes havoc in the South and devastation across the Northeast. But the name of this one. Bomb. Cyclone. It sounded like an altogether new kind of destruction. The news reports may as well have announced a “knifequake” or a “bankruptcy tsunami.”

I grew up in the Boston suburbs and inherited a stubborn New England refusal to acknowledge frigid temperatures. I don’t embrace the chill; I simply will not modify my behavior to accommodate its presence, as if the weather itself were a houseguest that overstayed its welcome. I would like it to be gone, and I am not going to dress up on its behalf. I am not what you call a man’s man (as you could tell if you saw me with my floral-print backpack or witnessed my inability to change my own oil), but I have a certain macho pride in refusing to bend to the elements.

“Are you sure you’re going to be warm enough?” is a question I get a lot. I wear a hoodie to walk my dog (in her little plaid coat, she’s often more bundled up than I am) until the elements freeze or soak or whip right through it and I have to upgrade to a medium-weight jacket. Then, when a medium-weight jacket isn’t enough, I don the protection of the classic Northeastern winter face: a scowl so complete it takes over one’s posture and gait, giving every pedestrian the relentless forward momentum of an N.F.L. running back. We hunch forward, seeking out space to maneuver, legs churning through air and slush.

“I love the change of the seasons,” I mutter, through gritted teeth, as a 20-mile-per-hour gust renders my pants irrelevant.

Clothing choices aren’t my only failure to adapt to my climate. I drink iced coffee nearly every morning and many afternoons year-round. Often I walk past my subway station and two fancy cold-brew spots at the end of my block, cross the street to Dunkin’ Donuts and then double back with a clear plastic cup big enough to hydrate a hockey team, were it full of water and not chilled, low-grade stimulant.

When temperatures dip below freezing, I take off my gloves to pay for my purchase and put them on when I go back outside. There are probably more sensible beverages I could enjoy over the full third of the year when nature itself is essentially a series of physical and psychological tortures. But caving in to that impulse runs counter to my native stoicism.

“They gave up, but I’m no quitter” is what I tell myself when friend after friend leaves the Northeast for a more temperate location. I see their Instagram pictures of palm trees and flip-flops as signs of weakness. Toughing out the winter is a dedication to my heritage, both in terms of not going “soft” by kowtowing to nature’s volatility, and staying physically close to my family in New England. I don’t run from that kind of pressure. I stare down the adversity and let it seep into my bones, the way slush fills your shoe when you step into one of those puddles that’s somehow a foot deep.

A few years ago, on a 60-degree day in January when I was visiting Los Angeles, a barista at a West Coast coffee chain handed me an iced coffee, and he had put an extra cardboard sleeve over the cup to insulate my hand against the cold. My face didn’t register it, but on the inside, I felt as insulted as if he’d put on a rubber glove before shaking my hand, or offered me my drink in a sippy cup. I fumed as I walked out the door, and I flung the sleeve into a nearby trash can. I walked to my rental car sipping my coffee, and I realized … my hand was more comfortable with the cardboard. He wasn’t judging me at all. He was just trying to make my day a little more pleasant.

At the time I wasn’t ready to absorb the lesson, but this winter something changed. Maybe a few years of what feels like increasingly extreme weather have worn me down. Or maybe, a little more established in my life and career, I feel less sentimentality toward the punishing climate of my childhood. I am not a wimp, nor am I a traitor to my New England upbringing, if I wear a real winter coat.

And so with a heart that is heavy with the weight of several wool sweaters, I can finally say: Winter is terrible.