I’m not a fan of winter and I hate cold, but it sure scraps pretty!


Credits: Life Captured: November by Pixelilly Designs and Ice, Ice Baby by Connie Prince, red hat and mittens by Scrap with Lynn


Journaling:


My miserable relationship with cold started when I was very young, about 6 or 7. The family went ice fishing. It was a long weekend trip. We stayed in a rental cabin on the lake and drove the car onto it to our rented ice shanty. It was cold, terribly cold. It didn’t matter how thick my boots and socks or how many layers under my snowmobile suit, I was in a constant state of fear that I’d never be warm again. In short, I hated it. We made this trip a few years in a row and I grew to hate it more every year.


Now I didn’t mind the cabin, it was warm and there were lots of blankets and there was soup and hot cocoa. It wasn’t even bad walking in town; after a day on the ice, nothing could be cold. But the next day was back to the ice and I was too young to just stay in the cabin, so I had to go. The grownups would stay in the shanty with a small heater and the fishing poles sitting in holes cut in the ice. Inevitably Dave and I would get bored and we’d be sent back outside to play. It felt like I was being punished for being bored.


I vividly remember being crouched down by the ice shanty compacting myself as much as possible trying to get warm and in near tears rocking back and forth praying that God wouldn’t let me die from the cold. My reasoning for that prayer was because it was a family weekend and it was supposed to be fun. I thought my parents would be disappointed in me if I died.


I did finally realize that I had to summon the courage to tell them how much I hated ice fishing or they’d make me keep going. I honestly don’t remember if they quit going, but I do know that thankfully, I quit having to go!

I was in my 20s before I told my Mom that I actually prayed because I thought they’d be disappointed if I died. By then, it was a child’s mind and language and we could laugh about the notion that I didn't want to die because it would "disappoint" them. But at the time disappointing my parents was the worst thing I could do and it was truly terrifying.


I can pretty safely declare that I'll never ice fish again.