I stand in the middle of the floor and let the cold air wash over me. I tell myself to stay, to learn to stand and live with discomfort, to allow myself to be frozen.

I wonder if that’s my problem. Am I frozen here, in the life I thought I wanted?

The same faces revolve over and over again, in the pictures saved on my hard drive, in every phone call, in their voices and faces every weekend. We are comfortable enough to throw straw wrappers at each other in restaurants, to lie in the same beds and chairs, to walk into each other’s houses without knocking, but not yet comfortable enough to always say what we mean.

I love them more than they know. We should be learning how to let go of each other, but all we do is grow closer. I know this will only make it hurt more when I have to let them go, but I can’t bring myself to tear our lives away just yet.

If we could stay frozen in a moment, if we could be together forever, who would we be with? Which moments would we choose? Would you be here with me, or somewhere else, in someone else’s moment?

I am still frozen in moments with you.

I see you frozen behind a glass door with snow in your hands. I see your eyes from across a table, hear your voice on my cell phone. I see all of us together in hundreds of photographs, frozen in time, eternally happy, unaware of the secret heartaches that lurk behind the pasted smiles.

I see us in a car in December with the top down, in April on a beach thousands of miles away, next September moving into different dorms in the same city. I see us letting go, bit by bit, year by year, until all I have of you is frozen in a memory, in a photograph, in a note.

Cold washes over me on a winter night, and I can let myself freeze, I can embrace the cold wind, because I know spring’s warmth will melt our lives away.

Today all I want is to be frozen in this world for another minute.