I just don’t like spring. Say what you want about the warm weather and sunny skies, I don’t see how all this fresh air could possibly be good for anyone. Over the winter, I could deteriorate in my room in peace without fear of interruption, leaving only to cop surreptitious Indian refrigerator meals from Wesshop. Without sunlight, my olive skin turns a sickly gray, and I can pass as ill to most of my professors with ease. Even better, no one can come close to inspecting my rapidly decaying body under thick layers of North Face jackets and ironically patterned sweaters. The cold weather months left me alone, gave me an excuse to complain and look miserable, and allowed me to relish my time indoors without guilt.

Now, everything is beautiful, and I am expected to enjoy it. Everyone I know and their pre-frosh are outside on Foss, relaxing and chatting and acting as if schoolwork only existed in the chillier months. I saw a flower the other day and it wasn’t even on some softboy’s ironic Hawaiian shirt. Some girls miraculously already have tans. Suddenly, my pallid complexion has no excuse, and I have no mid-January sniffles to get out of class. Everyone being outside also means I have to say “hi” to everyone, or at least contemplate how many people I am on a greeting basis with after I spent half a semester in hibernation.

If I spend a moment in my room, I feel compelled to at least open a window (sorry, Eco-facilitators), or move to my balcony where I can grumble at loudly-passing cars or even worse, say “hi” to people from a weird distance. The moment the weather is nice again, you are morally obligated to “take advantage of it,” or at least that’s the impression my mother has given me over the phone. You are also not allowed to be in a bad mood when the weather is nice. The sunshine and general merriment mocks you, as if the universe decided to tell you in particular, “Fuck you, I’m having a good time.” Day-drinking also becomes normalized again, a personal attack on those who wake up on Saturdays with actual hangovers. Sorry, darty-goers, but fun has a curfew! Leave my weekend afternoons for blearily regretting the events of my night before.

Don’t even get me started on baseball. The field? An inconvenience. The sport? A test of true endurance, and I don’t mean for the players. If I wanted a game that lasted an obscene amount of time without a satisfying payoff, I would revisit my ex. At least for most of football season, I could use the rain and chill as a means to avoid school spirit. It’s hard to ignore a baseball game when that muddy diamond is sitting between you and your Usdan omelette, and that crisp 70-degree weather draws you to the sun like a former doomsday cultist. The best entertainment I can hope for is that someone accidentally fouls a ball through a window of Clark. Now, that would warrant a visit to the “oldest continually-used collegiate sports field.”

At this point, now that I’ve probably alienated my entire readership, I have a confession to make: I have almost no experience with cold weather. I have grown up in Texas my entire life, attending baseball games in 90-degree weather, enjoying a temperate climate even in the middle of January. I can count the number of times I’ve seen snow on one hand, and the number of classes I’ve had canceled due to snow on zero hands. Spring, or at least the attitude and practices surrounding it, is my standard mode of operation. We took our fortune for granted, and I liked it that way. The idea of spring as something to look forward to, as something to achieve and revel in, is entirely foreign to me. Warm weather should be nothing special, and anything below 50 degrees should be an insult. Hell will freeze over at the same time as Texas, and you can take that as you will.

That is why winter was my true escape. Yes, it was miserable, but there is some nihilistic comfort in knowing that you can blame your unhappiness on forces you can’t control. In the springtime, the sunlight brings everything out into the open, and you’re completely exposed once more, no overcoat to hide behind. Your only option is to adopt a sunny disposition, and I’m just not disposed to do that. Bring back winter, or else I’ll just wait until it’s too hot to go outside again.