Solid Ground. A Winter Essay on Loss and Stillness

It feels unmistakably like winter.

Not just on the calendar. Winter in the bones. Cold mornings. Short days. Long nights. Staying home more than planned. The fireplace working overtime. Dogs arguing loudly about nothing, then collapsing into sleep as if it never mattered.

I sold my SUV to my son. It was the practical choice. It made sense on paper. The car deal included my son giving me his 2015 sedan with 114,000 miles. Smaller than the SUV. Slower. Quieter. I’m grateful for the sedan. I truly am. I am embarrassed to admit that it feels like losing a race I didn’t know I was running. That SUV carried a future. It was meant to tow a camper. It was meant to take me and my dogs across the country while I worked remotely and lived smaller and wider at the same time. Letting it go feels like placing that dream on a shelf. Not abandoned. Just out of reach for now.

Inside, at home, I’m working on a blue-and-white king-size quilt. One seam at a time. That part steadies me. However, my work does not. Freelancing always slows around the holidays, but knowing that doesn’t quiet the fear when the emails go still.

The water pressure tank failed this week. A thousand-dollar replacement I didn’t plan for. And then, heavier than everything else, I had to put my ten-year-old English mastiff to sleep after her cancer diagnosis. Some losses rearrange the furniture. That one rearranged the entire house. The quiet is different now.

I’ve been asking what this season is asking of me, because it is clearly asking something.

Reservation, maybe. Restraint. I thought the timing would line up. Instead, I’m being asked to pause a dream that mattered to me. To sit still with less than I planned. To remember that wanting something deeply does not mean it arrives on schedule.

It feels like an invitation to be still. To regroup. To learn satisfaction with fewer moving parts.

This is where restlessness creeps in.

I’m already thinking about the next car. Maybe a cargo van to convert myself. Something that proves I haven’t given up. I wonder why waiting feels so hard. Why my mind searches for the next solution instead of letting this season be what it is.

At the same time, I’m trying to bring in more work. More income. More stability. That impulse feels both responsible and impatient. Always hunting.

What I focus on now is what still holds.

A roof over my head. A working fireplace. Warm, handmade quilts. A twenty-year-old sewing machine that still runs like a dream. Dogs who argue and play and fill the space with noise and life. A comfortable bed. A pitch-black bedroom that feels like a cave at night, in the best way.

Night is where the comfort lives right now. Short days ask less of me. Long nights feel like permission. I watch the clock for what seems like a respectable time to go to bed.

I love the word “onward.” I’ve always meant it as motion. Drive, speed, focused precision.

But onward does not feel like a Ferrari right now.

It feels like that staying. Tending what is here. Keeping the fire going. Feeding the dogs. Sewing the next seam. Paying the unexpected bill without letting it convince me that everything is falling apart. Onward is the sedan today.

Onward doesn’t have to mean forward motion every day. Sometimes it means holding your ground. Sometimes it means surviving a season intact. Sometimes it means trusting that the path will reappear when the light comes back.

For now, onward looks like warmth, patience, and staying put.

And I’m learning that counts.

Help someone find solid ground.

If this essay resonated, consider sharing Solid Ground with a friend who might need a steadier place to land. Quiet words travel farther than we think.

Solid Ground is a space for reflection, patience, and learning to move onward without rushing. There are no quick fixes here. Just honest writing for seasons of change, pause, and reinvention.

Onward,
Bobbie Kay