You put it on because it felt good at the time: that giant velvet cape with the impenetrable, high-grade nylon on the outside. It’s comforting. It protects.
But when you walk around the corner — usually the same corner — where the sun drops down and the wind kicks up, the cape works against you. It becomes hard to walk.
You crouch down, lean into it, clutching your beloved cape around your neck in a fist. The cape thunders behind you; it curls and snaps like a flag.
You walk like this and it’s hard. Your legs tire, your hand cramps, your lungs fill with ice from being in the wind so long.
Sometimes, you give in, let the wind push you back, away from the faces and the outstretched arms and the warmth that’s around the next corner. Sometimes you push through it but, once there, you’re too tired to enjoy those arms and that warmth. You’re busy fixing your hair, adjusting your cape around you, recovering from the storm, and preparing for the next one.
It’s your cycle: becoming cold, getting warm, and missing out.
And it won’t end until you end it.
When you round that corner, when the wind strikes your face, when it pushes on your chest and knocks you back, don’t be angry at the wind.
Remember that you’re holding the cape.
Listen for the crackle of it behind you. Feel its tug. Notice your own fist, there, under your chin, holding that protective shield around you. Look at your whitening knuckles.
Then, open your hand.
That’s all it takes.
With the wind so fierce, your cape will fly off of you by itself. It will travel up into the dark sky like a scared animal, like a banished demon.
You will have your hand back.
You will be able to stand up straight and walk forward.
And, though your shoulders and arms will be exposed and grow cold at first, you will get where you’re going faster, to the warmth, to the faces, and you will feel the warmth and see the faces, because you will no longer be thinking about the wind.