As the snow begins to fall you can walk outside and see how slowly but constant it sways back and forth, until the image of the grass in front of you becomes nothing but a white facade of an endless ocean of white.

White that will reflect any light that touches it, and at night, everything becomes a bluer shade of white as the only thing in the sky is the moon, and without any artificial light, you can still see and walk for miles.
That kind of winter never seems to bother me, it’s cold out, but I never really feel the temperature, it never really enters my conscious. It’s usually just before winter or right before spring. Maybe it’s because the wind kicks it up a notch, maybe it’s the newer smell of a different season is in the air, and the reminders of seasons past.

If I go back really far, in my mind things are very simple. I’m not sure why this is one of those constant memories of mine that I can feel physically. As if something tragic happened, though nothing did, it was a very simple memory. It’s 6am, dark, winter, the old furnace kicking on every few minutes or so. I'm about 6 years old, I'm hunched in a corner of my parents old pull out sofa, and wall where the air duct is, barefoot, I can still smell the old blue carpet. Feel the knob of the cold metal from the duct. And smell the air as its being forced up and around me.

The Tv is on in the living room. An old cable station with the colored sections of blue, green, and red are scrolling their advertisements, the temperature and some AM radio station is playing. My dad, he’s in the shower, getting ready for work, about to leave, and I’m just awake, trying to stay warm, trying to see him one last time before he leaves.

He goes to work, and that’s it, it’s a re-occurring memory. There’s one where I’m sitting alone on our old Winnie-the-poo swing set. Staring at what was my bedroom door to the side yard. Back then we had a fenced in yard, so my dad came home, opened the gate that I couldn’t reach and saw me, said hi, picked me up, hugged me, and then went inside.

The only constant in these memories is they start with some kind of anxious happiness that Im going to see this constant happy face of my life for a split second before he’s gone . Which is ok, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. But for some reason its my two earliest memories that replay in my head at almost 32 years old.

As I started to get older things for me were like most children, hiding the fact that I came from a poorer family, and made the most of it, and really didn’t feel the brunt of it. My parents fought a lot because of the financial strain; the only joy I remember was baseball. No matter how bad things got, I was either playing some form of baseball with neighborhood friends, playing catch, watching it on TV, or some video system we had may have had a baseball game. If there was no game, I was lucky enough to have baseball cards, friends that loved baseball cards, and my dad helped start a baseball card shop in the garage of their home so we had an escape.

Though somewhere between 1992 and present day, it was as if someone hit the pause button.

That year I can remember coming inside, I'm not sure what I was doing, but I walked in from the garage and my mom was in the kitchen doing dishes, my dad was coming up from the cellar, and they both stopped me and asked me a question. My dad said that because he saw my love for the (Score) brand and (Topps) brand cards I had, and asked if I would like to start a business with him. As any son was, I got excited and said yes.

Everything came to play, I mean days went on, more cards, then card shows, then cards added up, then we got smart, after everything was official, we not only had a local neighborhood shop, but a sign on the right field wall at the local parks baseball field.

And then pause…

By that time, it was all too good to be real, it was all physically real, but the idea, and the progression was slowing down into a digression, and what was once started as a father/son, happy memory, started fading into a place where my dad went to get away, and a place where at times, I was afraid to walk into.

As a kid, they were ‘there’ for me, any kid gets bullied, and has every day questions, and though I had two brothers, a loveable dog, a cat, lived in what from the outside looked like a normal house. I felt like I was always looking for a way out. A way to stop being alone.

Though I had great friends, it was the constant thought of what is home? What is family? I'm sure they did the best they could with the plate they were dealt, but for me something always felt a bit off.

So basically as quick as things seemed to be looking up, really it was just another snow covered facade showing me what it wants me to see, but not what was really underneath.

That’s it. The rest has been on pause since I can remember; a pack of baseball cards filled with what if scenario’s that never played out, and never will. The happy idea of kids growing old and staying together and coming together for holidays is lost for good.

The best way to explain my life, is its most simple entirety up till now, would be as an old cassette tape.

The Play button was pushed when I was born, it kept spinning till I hit 11 years old. Then the tape player needed some knew batteries. But batteries weren’t bought, so the stop button was pushed. About nine years later, somebody saw that old dusty tape player had a tape in it. Figured it’ might be something worth listening to, and put fresh batteries in it. And hit play, the tape started up again for a little while, but by that time, years of age and tear had worn on that plastic cassette tape. The film itself was wound so tight that the tape eventually snapped, and was no longer playing anything, it was just spinning silent and constant circles on play, and nobody really noticed.

Until I met Melissa, then the tape ran out, and the player automatically stopped. Almost 3 years later we got married, and someone needed batteries. Seeing the old cassette player, they used the batteries from the player, leaving the tape still inside. Then this year came, 2013, the tape has finally been removed by myself. And thrown out, not looking back on 30 or more years, just tossing the plastic tape into a fire.

Knowing it’ll never be played again, just wanting to start my own beginning. Because how it was before, the quiet depressing solitude, that my family feels I created in my own mind. The constant outburst over such nonsense. The way scabs aren’t supposed to be repeatedly picked until there is no possible way it can heal naturally or to recognize what hurt you. or the unrelenting overlooking of the plain stupidity of how things worked out today.

I just cannot see past it without staying away from it.

For those reading this, there was an email I wrote. One that I know someone reading this should have gotten weeks ago. It was hurtful, like someone kicked in the honest door from its hinges kind of hurtful, show me your worst brutal honest thoughts Is what it asked for, and that’s what I gave it.
For those affected I’m sorry I was blunt.
But I’m not sorry for my feelings, or what I said. They came from the heart, they were genuine. I will leave it at that.

Remember as a child, drawing hop scotch or your name in chalk on a sidewalk, you’d color the blocks in or squiggle your name a hundred times. Then a day of rain would come by and destroy any evidence of your fun times. That is basically how I felt, how I currently feel over specific situations, and why I felt I needed to write this.

Right now that past for me is a rain covered sidewalk, already washed away any sign of happiness from a previous day. Maybe as the weather dries out, maybe the sun will brighten me up, but for now, it’s still damp. And because nobody wants to be outside when it’s raining, at least for now, nobody will be able to walk all over me.