Normally around this time of the year I am feeling completely overwhelmed and browbeaten by winter. I watch the slow creep of the sunset as a person stranded on a desert island watches the horizon for rescue. It helps, a little.

But this year has been the strangest winter weather-wise that I can remember in my 37 years. We’ve had 7 inches of snow so far in Boston, none of which has stuck for more than 24 hours. The average snowfall by the end of January is 44 inches, and I don’t have the numbers for last year, but I’m guessing at least 80. Last year the snow was piled in ugly, sludgy-icy, black piles on the streets, as hard as cement if you should brush up against one as you parallel parked. The sidewalks were icy in parts, sludgy in parts, so that every time I ventured out I either fell, or got soaked, or both. It was really pretty, especially in the “green” parts of the city. But it mostly just made life harder, and made me feel claustrophobic; trapped in snow and winter with another two months to go.

But this year I have been slowly relaxing. I was tensed for battle, marking the days that the sunset would read 4:30, 4:45, 5:00, and the days that the average temperature would stop going down (January 16th) and start going back up (January 25th). But those days have passed anticlimactically (and, interestingly, anitclimatically [not a real word, but a West Wing reference: “It was ‘anticlimactic,’ not ‘anticlimatic!’ ‘Anticlimatic’ means ‘against the weather!”]). The few wintery days have been balanced by sunny, springlike days in the 40s and 50s. I’ve been out walking and biking, and taking the kids to the playground. Normally at the end of January I would be desperately trying to encourage myself with the almost-5 sunset, and the shortness of February, and the possibility that there would be spring-like days early in March. But now, winter hasn’t even really started. I’ve made it to February without the usual trauma and battle scars. Feels strange.

How is winter going for you?