What snow means

at age 21

A bit more careful, a bit more cautious, I was no longer ready to wreck everything. I thought I had lost the urge to tear across my backyard destroying the smoothness, as I was curled up, there in the center of my big bed, surrounded by other rooms with similar beds, nested comfortably in the center of my world. My life was neatly organized, as I had learned the effects of letting in something or someone who might rearrange what I had built up so carefully. When I did, it felt a lot like falling. I know now that you never do learn.
This organization, tidiness never lasts for long. I am pulled out of bed, come outside! It's snowing! So I went. Destruction of our collective college backyard ensues, the sort of destruction only possible at age 21, when I am at the peak of my being (or at least this is how it feels). I could feel myself growing down, shocked by the sudden coldness, the sudden energy of becoming that seven-year-old kid again who is so excited to be up and about at 3 in the morning. And then, eventually, retreating in happy exhaustion, peeling off the layers. Back to my tiny room and crawling back to the familiarity of my bed, with the covers around me and my window at my head, a little fogged up from the cold outside and warm inside. I couldn't sleep as I became aware that I had knocked my walls down, and I had let myself be rearranged.