When I was a little kid, I used to love snow. I would wake up to a world covered in white with wonder in my eyes and glee in my heart. I would dance around, knowing that school was cancelled, meaning that my day was filled with hot cocoa, sledding and old movies. I had no responsibilities and no obligations. For that day, I was free.

Up until high school, snow held this certain magic for me. Snow seemed to put the rest of the world on pause for a day. There was nothing to worry about until tomorrow. Even when snow didn’t cancel school, it was this beautiful, wonderful thing. I romanticized it and hoped for a white Christmas every year.

Then, something changed. I started to learn how to drive. Snow lost some of its magic for me. Learning to drive in the snow was terrifying. Driving in any conditions other than sunny was scary at first, but snow seemed especially dangerous. I also began to notice how grey snow became on the roads and how the salt stuck to my car.

Now, as a college student, the magic of snow is nearly gone. When I first see the little white flurries, my childlike glee comes through for about five seconds. Then, I think about having to drive the following morning and how much more traffic there will be on my drive. I think about all the responsibilities that are still there for me, waiting for me regardless of the weather.

Once I began to reach adulthood, snow stopped pausing the world for me. The snow continued on and so did my responsibilities. I had no more timeouts from the world. People still expected me to be on time and be productive. Classes are rarely cancelled, forcing me and all other students to trek through the bad weather to make it to class.

Collegiate sports don’t stop for snow either. My team and I are out there in the cold and the snow day after day, month after month and year after year. Half the team can be shoveling while the other half is doing drills. Now when I see snow, I groan because I know I will be headed out into it soon.

In a way, it is sad that a piece of childhood wonder is gone. As I have gotten older, I’ve lost more and more these pieces. Though this is all part of growing up, it’s life, and even though some of the magic is lost, I still have the memories of sticking my nose to the glass on snow days.

The magic is never truly gone because we all carry it within us as these memories. One day when we are parents, we will watch our own kids as they view the snow with childlike wonder, keeping the magic alive.