A Passion for Denial

Winter is as crazy does.

“I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.” — Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

I wear shorts to the gym in -20 weather.

If you’re a weather buff, you know that’s cold enough to risk frostbite on exposed skin in less than a minute (thank you, WeatherBug Meteorologists). But the crazy in me loves the fearful hyperbole of having less than a minute to survive anything. It makes me feel stronger than the herd; you’re cringing and I’m not.

Alright, so truth is I’m typically only outside long enough to walk the distance of the gym parking lot. That hardly equates to a Dawn Wall feat of mountaineering. But I’m going to do it again tomorrow and the next day and probably the next. Why? Simple. Because if I quit denying winter, it wins.

It ain’t nothing but a mind game. Old Man Winter wants to throw ice daggers at me? Fine. He’s no fiercer than I. My mother-in-law wants to worry-text me from her sunny retirement climes every time the Minnesota weather hits the national news? Fine. I’ll worry-text her right back about the exponential rise in skin cancer. 300 percent. Boom! Mic drop.

It may be winter, but I’ve got this.

I have to. I’m a Minnesotan. I choose to live here. I’m not stuck here because of a job or a spouse or a lack of exit strategy. I’m here because –

I’m here because –

I’m here …

Cripes. Why am I here?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself since the weather drove below freezing and parked. I can console myself with statistics about how much warmer it is than last year, but last year was the coldest winter we’ve known since we started knowing. So I can’t help but ask, how is consoling myself with the memory of last winter any different than saying, “Well, at least I’ve got prostate cancer. Liver cancer would kill me quicker.” (Okay, yes, I do realize that, as a woman, I don’t have a prostate. Save the comments.)

These aren’t rational comparisons. That’s just denial, pure and simple. And I love it. Denial, for all it’s bad press, can be a powerful force for good. It’s like the Wicked Witch of the West; she was terrible, yes, but without her, Dorothy would never have met such good friends on the way to Oz. Likewise with denial. Without it, I’d never come out from under the blankets to get to the gym.

It’s zero degrees right now. But it was -9 when I started this post. See how much warmer it is already?

Gretchen Anthony is a Minnesota-based writer and essayist. Want to be the first to know when she publishes new content? You could text her, but her boys have a tendancy to borrow her phone. Sign up for email alerts, instead.