I’ve been down the last couple of days. Work has been kicking my ass, chores and errands keep piling up, and I haven’t had much time to relax. I’d love to be writing my next book, I even had some time to work on it today—but I don’t do well with half measures. I long for a day when I can wake up leisurely, go through my morning routine without hurry, and then get lost in the worlds I write for hours on end.

Unfortunately, the real world isn’t set up to let people like me work as we’d like. Not without another job or two and being massively overworked. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

(I’m bitter.)

So, in an effort to boost my mood, I decided to rewatch Frozen.

Before anything else: Frozen is a fantastic movie. The animation is gorgeous, the music is powerful, and there’s masterful sleight of hand at work in how the story uses not one, but two red herrings to distract from where the act of true love is really coming from. Like all good children’s stories, Frozen is not just for children, even if it’s basically The Lion King all over again. Which was also amazing, so I’ll take it.

But liking a cartoon isn’t a shocking admission for me. More rare is that I’m rewatching anything at all.

I rarely rewatch or reread anything. Once in a while I’ll rewatch a movie, as I just did, or reread a comic. (I’ve also been rereading Atomic Robo lately, which is phenomenal.) But I’ll only rarely rewatch even a single episode of a TV show, and I almost never reread books. Probably Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books are the only ones I’ve reread for sure, and maybe Dune and the Starfighters of Adumar—because yeah, I’m a giant nerd, and Star Wars was where it all started. Plus the quipping in that book is top notch.

Which is probably to my detriment. There’s so much to be gained from rereading a story. It won’t be new, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still thrill, and you notice so much on the second time through. Plus, as my rewatch of Frozen reminds me, revisiting an old story is warm. It’s comfortable. It’s soothing. Sometimes it’s nice to go back into a story, to appreciate its strengths and dig deeper into all its little tricks, while still knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s all going to turn out all right.

Does that mean I’m going to rewatch and reread more often? I dunno. Probably not, if I’m being honest. There’s so much new out there, so much I want to learn those first lessons from. But maybe I will. I think we all ought to venture out where it’s new and scary, to learn new skills and become better people . . . but sometimes, it’s fine to stay in where it’s warm, and visit old friends.

Even if one of those friends is a Snow Queen who covered Arendelle in ice. Again.