A snowstorm stole my joy

To celebrate my 48th birthday last week, I had dinner with a friend I’ve known since I was 14.

We went to an Italian restaurant famous for the pizza. We didn’t order the pizza. It wasn’t the first time we didn’t get the pizza on my birthday.

The year Beth and I met, in 1992, I planned my birthday party at a pizza place called Papa Gino’s.

This wasn’t an ordinary get-together-and-eat-pizza birthday party. Papa Gino’s offered a thing where you and your friends could go into the kitchen and make your own pizzas before eating them!

I looked forward to it for months. The week before, my friends and I couldn’t stop talking about how epic it was going to be.

My birthday happened to be falling on a Saturday night, everyone in my teenage universe was on board, and I was planning to wear a sweet shirt from the Gap. Nothing could steal my joy.

Except the snow storm that rolled in the morning of my birthday.

Papa Gino’s closed due to inclement weather. Everyone was stuck at home because no one’s parents wanted to drive. My dreams of pizza birthday glory were shattered.

I have no memory of what I ended up doing on that snowed-in birthday. (Knowing my parents, probably something still pretty great.) I don’t need to remember the details to know I survived the Papa Gino’s letdown. Life went on.

For my 15-year-old self, this didn’t occur swiftly or with anything resembling ease. If I could go back in time and tell her something, here’s what I’d say:

A snowstorm wiping out your birthday is exactly what should have happened because it IS what happened.

While she rolled her eyes at me, I’d keep talking:

Any suffering you’re having around the party being canceled is coming from your resistance to what happened, not because of what happened.

That’s when she’d tell me I obviously don’t understand the situation, slam the door in my face, and crank “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.

And she’d be right. As Byron Katie says, “....it hurts when I argue with reality.”

What realities are you arguing with?

Maybe it’s cold weather.
Or a holiday tradition.
Or a missed flight.
Or the city you live in.
Or something your partner said.
Or a job you don’t like.
Or the way your body looks.
Or the money in your bank account.

It’s tempting to blame the way you feel on the circumstances of your life, but this is a misunderstanding. Circumstances are neutral until you layer meaning onto them.

Change the meaning, change your experience.

A snowstorm in 1992 didn’t actually steal my joy or ruin my birthday. Reality only bites if you let it.

Providence, RI
December 2025