It Has Started Again

 It Has Started Again
Yesterday was the first snowfall of the winter. Although the trees hung heavy with the white snow, it proclaims that there is more to come. That means shoveling the snow out of my driveway and having to battle the snow plows to permit me to leave my home when I want or in case of an emergency. I’m never comfortable if I can’t leave my home.
When I slipped on some ice and fell in my drive in 2015, I wasn’t allowed to drive for a month. I really felt cabin fever, confined and isolated. My kids offered to drive me when I needed something, but it wasn’t the same for me having the freedom to come and go as I wanted. They threatened to take my car keys away from me.
Not because of snow, but post-operatively after my triple bypass surgery, I was unable to drive for nearly a month and a half. I felt like I was caged. If I needed groceries or anything else, I had to wait for someone to be free to take me. It was almoost like I was a useless caged animal. When you get old, you hate to be told what you can and cannot do and when. I did cheat and began driving one week before the doctor released me, but it was only two miles on back roads to church and back. My kids didn’t approve of my early escape escapades.
A couple of uears ago I had another unfortunate event that limited my driving. It was two years ago and developed double vision. I had just visited an optomatrist several days before the double vision occurred. I went to the emergency room thinking perhaps I had a stroke. They could find nothing to have caused the problem. Eventually I was ablt to get an appointment with an opthamologist. She thought I either had a spike in my blood pressure or blood sugar which caused my eye muscles to malfunction. I found out this malady didn’t keep me in the house. It didn’t stop me from driving, but it did limit the distance I would allow myself to drive; back roads and a few miles only.
So the cold winter winds and snow have started. The sad thing about the beauty of snow is that it is fleeting and quickly gets dirty. I become weary of it long before winter is over and spring arrives.