Shorts/assorted stories, prompts, thoughts

on snowflakes and us

Where I am sitting right now, I am looking out of the window towards a snowstorm.

I was outside just a couple of minutes ago, just finishing up from sweeping and shoveling snow from the walkway up to my house. Fingers sore, feet like size 8 women's ice blocks. I decided to walk up and down the street.

As I walked, I felt all sorts of snowflakes on me. Some were more like rain drops. Some were basically just hail. Many were tiny ice crystals (I mean that's what snow is, really, so I know I'm not being too poetic here). I looked up and down, to the side both ways. There was no one around me but the snowflakes and the street. No cars, no people, no mysterious lightning bolts (I know that was a little random, sorry, couldn't help it).

I felt big and small snowflakes and I saw teensy ice crystals and medium ones and big ones and slightly big ones and the size where it is just smaller than average but not enough that anyone really notices. But it hit me that all the snowflakes came down, regardless of their shapes and qualities (of course they were all white and cold, I mean more complex qualities) and personalities (some liked to dance in the air before falling on me and some just plummeted towards the ground).

In this world, there are many different sizes of us. We are big (the "I can't believe she fits into those jeans ohmegosh" type of people), the undersized (the "does she even eat she looks like she's dying" girls) and the ones who aren't society defined as big yet we feel like we take up yards as we waddle into the room. "What do you mean, you're fine," they say when they talk to you, yet moments later you can hear giggling behind covered mouths. Or we are the smaller than average, but not small enough to be noticed. Highlight that word, "enough". But with snow and snowflakes there isn't an "enough". There is no requirement for God to make you freeze or the temperatures to make you come spiraling down. Everyone comes down together, but in their own way.

When I returned to my house's walkway from the walk, I noticed that all of my shoveling work had gone. There was the walkway, looking exactly the same as before I shoveled and swept it. Snow covered and snow filled. So what was all that work for, if it can all vanish in a matter of minutes? We feel like snow covers what that which we shoveled, saying that "your work is not enough because I will always be able to cover it with more". But it's not possible to shovel farther than the ground. I can't start pulling up the stones in my walkway to dig a trench, all in order that the snow will take longer to cover my work. We can't do more than our best at any given moment. People are crazy to expect us to "dig up the stones of our walkway", to do more than our best at any time. It doesn't matter if my best is shoveling one inch of snow, or half an inch of snow, and it doesn't matter if the snow can cover it in a millisecond over again.

It is discouraging when we do work and it is always overshadowed by someone or something else. We got a 87 on the test we studied overnight for, but the girl sitting next to us scored an 98 without trying. We can't stop pulling at the fat or ugliness on us, while we scroll through pictures of the perfect people that surround us. Whatever it is, we tried really hard, but the snow covered it up -- just like it always does.

Have you heard anyone say that every snowflake is unique, and you will never find two snowflakes that are the same? So does every big, small, medium snowflake think they are living on their own because they are the only ones like themselves?

Of course we are not snowflakes, you are probably saying. We're not graceful, or beautiful, or unique or as special as a snowflake. But at least whatever condition you are in, you are not alone.

I promise you, the world is beautiful. We might be built from lies and fat and "never-enoughness", but that doesn't let us stop trying. God put you here, He put me, He put your crazy old neighbor, and He put your annoying Algebra teacher all on this world for a reason. He doesn't care what you look like, and anyone who is worth your time shouldn't care either.

Just take time to look around outside at the small beauties whenever you are unable to find them inside yourself.