Dreary days of winter are finite

And so it begins: The long slog toward springtime.

If you fall into certain age categories, you’ll find yourself wondering in the coming weeks why the heck you still live in the Midwest. You’ll have high school classmates and cousins and in-laws living in places like Florida or Arizona or — to make you truly envious — Belize.

And you’re still shoveling snow.

What is different this time around is, of course, the pandemic.

Does it make things worse? Or do the restrictions actually make the wintry season more bearable?

When the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started coming down last spring, they were in stark contrast to the season. The sun was shining, temperatures were rising, and baseball was on the horizon.

Until it wasn’t.

COVID-19 restricted our world, limiting contact with others, putting a dampener on spring. And things didn’t get much better in the summertime. If anything, they were worse.

In winter, I am hoping, the contrast will be less sharply defined.

After all, for most of January and up through the Super Bowl, most Americans are on the couch, eating too much, watching way too much football and pretty much socially isolated just the way the CDC would like us to be.

And even our mask-free brethren — engaged in imaginary combat against the tyranny of public health officials attempting to save their lives — will have to bundle up.

Who knows? They may even have to wrap scarves around their faces now and then as winter wind chills reinforce the CDC’s messaging.

Yes, there will continue to be restrictions. Church services, concerts and — most importantly in Indiana and Ohio — high school basketball games will be affected.

But the nice thing about winter is that it doesn’t last forever.

Every day without snow, every day without sub-zero temperatures, every day when the car starts on the first turn of the key is another step toward springtime.

Though it seems, usually in late February and early March, as if the season will go on forever, it is finite.

And that’s comforting, especially because there are now indicators that the pandemic is finite as well.

The remarkable development of vaccines provides us all with a degree of hope that was sorely lacking even a few months ago.

Like spring, like the emergence of crocuses in the backyard, receiving the vaccine is now a matter of when, not if.

Think about that and savor it: When. Not if.

Spring will come. Baseball, in some form or other, will be played. Bats will crack. Daffodils and tulips will appear, undeterred by any pandemic. Nature will have run its course.

It may seem a long slog at times, but there’s sunshine at the other end.

Just the same, please remind me of that about the third week of February. I may need a little lift by then.