Útan liður í ísköld

It's already beginning to snow.

Last night the first flurries of the year caressed my soft mocha curls and melted on my warm pink cheeks as I looked up into the night sky. This time last year I was in a completely different place in my life. I was a different person in many ways. I close my eyes and let the peace of the snow swirl around me while memories pool in my tired, aching veins. I breathe in chilled air and exhale hot, the steam of my breath drifting away into the silence of the snowfall, doing what I wish I could do. The silence cloaks me and I feel I can allow myself to feel. I connect more to the seasons, the weather, more than I can to any human.
The snow holds so many memories; Racing snowmobiles across frozen plains, tempting fate and my strength. When I felt him first move inside me, filling me with warmth and starting a thaw of the deep freeze inside. Lights and swirls of the Weihnachtsmarkt in Kassel. The still silence of the grey of being caught inside a snowstorm; it felt as if the world was coming to an end and I was the only one alive. Then I breathe again. I open my eyes and I'm stood in the carpark of my work. The younger versions of me flash before my eyes as the lights of the plaza fade away. I'm back in Stockholm chasing the winds, small particles of ice colliding with me as I run. I don't know why I'm running, I just know that I have to. I slip and slide on the pavement while trying to keep my pace. I feel this pressing urgency, but I've never felt more alive. Tears roll down my blistered cheeks as I scream his name out over the Baltic sea. 

I want so badly to go back. I need to go back, but it's physically impossible. I can't re-create the moments even if I tried. A re-creation never lives up to the original. I'm not going to hype myself up just to break my heart once again. A stabbing pain erupts under my sternum and the only conclusion I can reach is that I am feeling longing and loneliness for the first time. His name burns my lips as I whisper it into the night. The cold begins to settle into my joints and I want nothing more than to curl up with him under a duvet, wrap my arms around his soft sides and press my face into the side of his neck. Like puzzle pieces, we always manage to fit together. The stress and unrest of the day pools around me as the memories of him and I together begin to consume me. The anger and the failures cease to matter. I don't understand his amazing ability to untangle the knots that choke me or how his warmth manages to force me to grow. The time we've spent apart has been catastrophic on me, challenged me in ways I never expected and taught me things about the human condition I'd only ever read about in books.

Title Translation
Icelandic-English
Útan liður í ísköld- Outside of the icy cold