This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

My lovely friend and fellow writer Julia Blue Le Mar has given me permission to share what she recently wrote on her Facebook page:

"Years ago I decide to make 'come what may and love it' my personal motto for the year. I didn't know how doing that would change me, but this shift in my attitude has been really impactful. One small example: I used to dread winter and its dark cold days. It was easy to complain and feel depressed. I never expected to actually like this season, but I genuinely do now. And it's just a nicer way to live … loving whatever comes."

Julia's post struck a deep chord with me because I have certainly spent a lot of time complaining about the winter months in this column over the years — how cold weather makes me want to fall face forward in a trough full of warm Mexican food and eat myself into a coma, from which I'll emerge (just like Snow White!) in the spring.

Now, however, I'm trying to adopt Julia's motto. To that end, I've been working on a New Plan to Survive Winter. Here's what it looks like so far.

1. Find someplace warm.

2. Like Hawaii, for example.

3. Make the necessary travel arrangements.

4. Buy a swimsuit.

5. Also a cover-up because YIKES!

6. ME IN A BATHING SUIT!

7. Then get the hell out of Dodge.

Obviously I haven't quite arrived at the "love it" place. But here's a realization I have had. It starts with a memory of an older woman who lived in our neighborhood when I was a kid. She was intelligent, accomplished and elegant in the way certain women (think Donna Reed) of her generation were. I always admired her because she was warm with children, and I liked her teenage daughter who sometimes babysat us.

When I ran into this woman some years later, I asked after the pretty girl who'd once been my babysitter. The woman was frank: Her daughter's life had been hard — not really the life either one of them had imagined for her when both of them were younger.

What struck me at the time was how matter-of-factly she said all of this. I was, in fact, a little taken aback by her no-nonsense tone.

I think I understand it better now, though. This woman was old enough to have seen plenty of pain. She'd accepted it as a natural by-product of living and you know what? She. Just. Wasn't. Afraid. Of. It. Anymore.

I realize I have spent a lot of my life fearing future pain: disappointment, illness, humiliation, rejection, failure, the inevitable deaths of the people I love. I am, as I have said before, one of those people who always wait for the other shoe to drop.

What I've sometimes lost sight of along the way is that people experience hard things, truly heartbreaking things, all the time — and figure out how to move on. Really, the resiliency of human beings is extraordinary.

Now back to Julia's motto, "come what may and love it"— I'm working to embrace it fully for myself one day. But until then I'll settle for this: Come what may and deal with it.

Because we can. And we do.

Ann Cannon can be reached at acannon@sltrib.com or facebook.com/anncannontrib.