Where can you reduce clutter in your life?
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.
Categories: Culture, identity, mental health, Pop Culture, Psychology, society, TV
psychologistmimi 
Bravo!! Great piece.
Careful with clean out today. For the record, I received 2 of those texts yesterday. Lol
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I like watching BTVS in times like these. ^^
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Buffy is my all time favorite
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Being Snowed-in In Modernity Life is a Lot Like that
Of Course even Science Agrees Empirically Assessed
Overall at Least in the United States Humans Are Colder
Than Ever Before With Bare Wires of Anxiety Even Leading
To Functionally Disabling
Depressions And
FRoZeN Cold
Humans
Indeed
Dear Miriam
Oh the Beauty
of ‘Staying Luke Warm’
So Ironically in a World of
Distraction And Reducing
Humanity and Even Nature
to Only “A Matter of Things”
There is Already the Social Science
Studied Limitation of the Dunbar Number
Of Humanity’s Social Capacity of around 150
Humans Warmly Well Acquainting Bonding And
Binding Over Similar Cultural Symbols Including
Language and Of Course Deeper Ideologies About Existence
As Whole
Yet Where is
The Room For
Even Introspection
Of Existential Intelligences
With All the Distractions and Yes
Average Attention Spans Studied
As Low as Less than a Gold Fish
Yep Less than Three Seconds Yet
‘The 40 Second Limit’ Recently Released
Seems More
Reasonable to
me With Blue Whale
Potential for Focus and
Attention Span on ONE TASK
like making each move holy dance
each word sacred song and Leaving
Room off Texting on a Phone Driving
To Avoid Incoming Traffic Farther Out on
The Horizon
Than A 6 Inch
Screen too Also
Necessary in Public
Dance Freight Training
250 Pounds With Balance
of a Feather and The Wind
Same Not Really Defying Gravity
Yet Yes Just FRiEnDS With Gravity
Scanning the Horizon With Affective
And Cognitive Empathy Closer to Humans
Who Have Open Mind Body Whole Souls
Avoiding
Those Tainted
More With Frowny
Lives With Due Consideration
Particularly Not to Knock Anyone Down
Ah Yes and The Dunbar Number of
5 Intimate Close Friends to Share
Our Deepest Pleasures and Pains
With In Life
It’s an Art
And Not a Number
Set in Stone Obviously
Someone Who Focuses
on Putting People First
Will Have Stronger
Soul Shoulders
to Lift Others
Up Versus
A Life Spent
As A Machine
In Fact and Figures
Of Life Long Distractions
And Other AI Slop Delivered
Hook Line and Sinker For Click Bait Indeed
It’s A Blessing to Be a “Luke Warm Giver” This
Day And ‘Golden Age’ Yep Balancing the Sith and
Jedi
Without Even
Any Words as
A Loyal Furry
Wookiee With No Words
At All Will Always Be Yes
A Wingman at the Side
of Humanity Lifting Them Up to
Fly at Least
a Bit Warmer
When It’s Cold Inside
11.4 Inches of Snow a Record
In One Day Yep Almost a Foot
In New York and Nearly Two Feet
in Toronto a One Day Record too
Indeed Makes Our 10 Inch Record
in my Florida Home Town even More
Impressive Last January And It’s True
Whether We Are Shut-in Warm In Home in the Snow for
Several Days if We Are Lucky Enough to Have One ThiS WaY
Or by Pandemic For Days And Even Months On End God Yes Or
Oh No Devil Whole In Dante FRoZeN Rings On End With No Beginning
Yes Even Shut-in
A Bedroom for
66 Months Like
me Back from 2008 to 2013
With the Worst Pain and Numb Known
to Humankind Yes Wake to Sleep No Drug
Would Touch For 66 Months the Introspection
Is More Likely to Come Finding What’s More Important
In Life And What’s Not So Important in Life and If We Become
Fuller Human
Indeed Yes As
Social Animals
The Reality is God
Yes Clear Yes Warmer
Connections Yes With
Each Other Indeed True
Yet a Big Advantage
i Have After Recovering
From the 66 Months i Didn’t
Have to Go Back to Being a Cog in a Machine
And Now Indeed for Most Everywhere i Travel
Online and Even Exponentially More in the Real
Store Floors Dance Hall Aisles Life a Trickle of
my Humanity A Barren Desert and the Dead Sea
Of My SouL Before Indeed is Now An Entire Ocean
Of Luke Warm
Everywhere
i Go as
A Practice
Of Life a Real
Golden Age
of Luke Warm
Human Indeed
Yet It’s True i Still
Have my Sith If Need Be
in my Back Pocket and Yoda
Always Navigating mY SoUL
As ‘The Child’ Becomes the
Adult
And
The Adult
Becomes
The Beginner
The Child Reborn Again
Just Warm Furry as Any
Loyal Wingman Wookiee Will Come to Be
In an Avatar Matrix and Now Sadly Terminator World
ThiS WaY
Yet Indeed
There are those
Among Us Who
Make the Loftiest
Sacrifice Giving Their
Life for the Bystander
Thrown to the Ground
By The Evil that
Still Lurks
In What Is Not
‘Good’ to Offer
A Hand Up for Humanity
to
BReATHE…
Indeed God
Speed For Real …
Okay off to Dance Now
Around my Neighborhood
Block in my Shorts And T-Shirt
Slowly in Freezing Windchill In Our NW Florida Day
God Yes Yet It only Make a Wave to a Neighbor
Feel that
Much Warmer
Within True
i Won’t Have
to Sacrifice my
Life Yet i Will Live
For them Today Just
Braving the Cold to Be Warm
Other than that the Hot Chocolate
my Wife Prepares when i get Back
Will Feel
Even More
Like LoVE iN Peace
As You See This Is No
High School Track Event for
me This Is God Speed a Full
Life
Olympic
Event Now
For those who
Still Feel the
Heat of a
HeART Beat
Still Pulsing Real….
SMiLes Dear Miriam
Cheers to Warm Human
Connections What We Come
To Create
for Real
Still “Luke Warm”..:)
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