Beautiful disturbance

My girlfriend is from a country that doesn’t see snow. So when it started snowing and didn’t stop for hours, it was amazing. She’d seen it two years ago, but nothing like this. But while she was looking at the snow, I saw some dread in her eyes. Now I don’t know what happens in anyone’s head, but if I were her, this is what I would’ve been thinking: There’s nothing worse than not being in control. It’s the one thing that makes me hate life. Life is somewhat chaotic, but there is a lot of control. The control we have is mostly fake -- still, I get to choose what I eat, what art I make, and when I work. If I make a strict schedule for all of those things -- I’ll be very bored. But it helps prevent the anxiety that comes with the lack of control. Even knowing the control is pretend, I need to feel like I have it. And there’s always something that comes along messing up the flow of my boring life. Sometimes something minor, like a birthday or an appointment (just don’t ‘accidentally’ say yes). But once in a while, it’s ‘real’: some health scare (or the end of the world). Then all you can do is accept the situation. That acceptance is fake too -- I mean, it’s real, but it’s just another way to try to mimic control; but it’s powerful. We can make choices, but we don’t control outcomes. Most of the time, life just happens. So when my girlfriend saw that snow, she saw more than a beautiful, peaceful world that looked just different from the world she’d seen thousands of times: she saw no way to bike to her work. But with no control over the clouds, that’s all she could do: So she sat there enjoying how the snow made her feel.