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When I was in college, I had a very clear image of myself.

I was the smartest guy in every room. I was a leader. People followed me because they expected great things from me. I was successful at everything I tried. I was going to be given immense political power and prestige soon, because people love a winner. Money would naturally follow, because I was going to do great things.

I wouldn’t have admitted these things, of course, but it’s the way I felt. I’m told by people who knew me then that I exuded a confidence that could seem more like arrogance at times.

I think it’s a miracle that anybody put up with me. At the time, though, it never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with the way I saw myself or the way I carried myself. And I didn’t realize for many years that the way I saw myself was almost completely in terms of my public image.

I saw myself — and judged myself — according to how well I played a role. I can’t remember wanting to be or do things to make myself happy or to make myself a better person. All of my goals focused on the image that others saw.

I’ve had to let go of almost everything I wanted back then. Almost nothing that mattered to me then matters to me today — and the things which mean everything today weren’t even on my radar when I was an arrogant college kid.

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I should be asleep now. It’s 1 a.m. and I’m exhausted. I slept only about four hours last night. Wednesday was a long and exhausting day, made longer by my lack of sleep.

But I’m sitting in the silent darkness of my front yard, watching clouds move across the night sky, creating endless patterns above the dark tree branches above me. One moment the sky is clear and the full moon is bright. The next moment, the clouds mute the light and diffuse its brightness like a giant sheet in the sky.

This is my favorite time of day. There are no people around. No ringing phones. Nobody who needs something from me. Everything seems clear. Life makes more sense.

In this peaceful stillness, I am the closest I come to being joyful and happy these days. My feelings and thoughts turn to a future which seems just barely out of reach. And I always think of her.

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The weather’s been miserable here. We went through a bitterly cold period a couple of weeks ago. We’ve had a couple of other times when strong storms came through, thrashing us with heavy wind and deluging us with rain. By southern standards, it’s been a bad winter.

All the trees around my house look bare and lifeless. My back yard is littered with limbs and branches that I haven’t yet cleared away, debris from a couple of the recent storms. There’s one large tree branch — the one you see above — that crashed down one evening so close that it almost hit my house.

I was in the back yard Sunday afternoon looking at all the debris and the bare trees when I realized that what I was looking at matched the sour mood I’ve been feeling. It seems as though my heart has been experiencing winter for a long time. And then I remembered a simple question from an old song.

“Can you stand the weather — if winter lasts forever?”

And I don’t know how much more winter my heart can stand.

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