What was that? The wind.

When I moved to the east coast, people told me my body would acclimate to the winter. Last year I scoffed at these individuals every time I stepped out of my apartment into the sheet of ice that was the air and began my dreadful walk to the T. Sometimes I even would scoff at them in my apartment when I would be shivering on my couch and visibly observing my breath leave my mouth. Now however, in my second winter on the right coast, I thought for a brief instant that I had fully acclimated to the cold. I would walk to the T on my way to work laughing victoriously to the silence of my teeth not chattering. I waved my hands in the air without my mitten covers on and said “Go ahead and blow on my digits all you want wind but this west coaster has acclimated. Ha!”
I was delighted with my defeat of the weather and was feeling rather bad for all the scoffing I had done; until I realized that the winter I thought I had acclimated to was actually autumn. Today it was 20 degrees. I stepped out of my apartment and paused for a second to revel in the fact that the cold air didn’t affect me. I shook my head and thought “20 degrees? Please planet earth. Let me feel something in the single digits.” I later realize I was still in the doorjamb. The warm air from the apartment building still caressed my back. The wind had not yet cut through my body to remind me that despite the fact that I thought I had consumed enough coffee to wake myself up, I remained asleep up until that very moment when the wind said good morning. As my teeth chattered all the way to work, I hastily snapped on my mitten covers and shoved my hands into my pockets while simultaneously attempting to cover even my eyeballs with my scarf. It was during this frigid panic that I realized this west coast body has most definitely not acclimated to the cold. Nor do I believe it ever will. Good morning winter wind, please don’t wake me up so abruptly tomorrow. Thank you.