This grand January snowstorm came in hot.

Well. Cold. But you know what I mean.

It was nonstop. Relentless. The kind of snow that doesn’t gently fall.  It commits. It stacks itself. It blocks your car. It cancels your plans and politely informs you that you now live here.

So there I was. Snowed in with my dogs, who took one look outside and collectively decided that peeing could wait until spring.

The snow was beautiful. Sparkly. Quiet. Cinematic.

Also. It’s aggressive.

There’s something about being snowed in that forces a certain reckoning. You can’t run errands. You can’t distract yourself with busy. You can’t casually pop out for oat milk. You are trapped with your thoughts, your pets, and whatever streaming platform you abandoned in 2019.

Naturally, I went back to Veronica Mars.

Because when life feels heavy, I apparently revert to teen noir.

I’ve seen it before, of course. But snowstorms do this thing where they make old shows feel like old friends. Familiar. Comforting. Slightly embarrassing. Like, wow, we really loved low-rise jeans and complicated emotional backstories.

And somewhere between episode four and my third cup of coffee, it hit me.

Snowstorms remind you of people who haven’t checked in.

You know who I mean.

The ones you used to talk to all the time. The ones who knew your stories, your chaos, your inside jokes. The ones who quietly disappeared when life got inconvenient or when they no longer needed whatever you were providing.

Boo on them.

A snowstorm has a way of clearing mental clutter the same way it buries sidewalks. Suddenly, faces pop up. Conversations replay. Patterns become obvious.

And then comes the dangerous part.

The urge to text.

Not a dramatic text. Not a “we need to talk.” Just a very calm, emotionally evolved:

“Hey. We used to be friends. What happened?”

Followed closely by a certain feeling.

“I feel like you used me for X, Y, and Z.”

Which feels wildly on-brand for someone binge-watching Veronica Mars while trapped inside with two judgmental dogs.

Part of me wants to send those messages. Not to start fights. Not to beg. Just to get it out of my system. To put the truth on the table. To let it land where it lands.

Maybe they respond.
Maybe they don’t.

Either way, the silence becomes information.

There’s something oddly freeing about realizing that some people were seasonal. They were there when it was convenient. When you were useful. When life was light.

Then winter came.

Snowstorms don’t just shut down roads. They clarify relationships.

They show you who checks in.
Who shows up.
Who fades out quietly and hopes you won’t notice.

And here’s the thing. Noticing doesn’t have to be bitter.

It can be clean.

You can acknowledge that something ended without making it dramatic. You can let people go without burning down the village. You can decide that not everyone gets lifelong access to you.

Veronica Mars would approve.

She’s big on truth. On boundaries. On solving mysteries. On calling things exactly what they are.

So maybe this storm wasn’t just about snow.

Maybe it was about clarity.

About realizing that some friendships were real, and some were situational. That some people walk with you for miles, and others hop off at the first inconvenient stop.

And that’s okay.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if my dogs are emotionally prepared to step outside and if Veronica has finally figured out who did it.

Snowstorms have a way of bringing everything to the surface.

Even the stuff you thought you’d buried.