S.A.D.
Winter always feels so long, especially in a basement apartment. My partner has poured hours into cultivating a well-lit and serotonin-inducing space, and the payoff has been immense for our little family.
On nice days, we open the windows and listen to the cats as they yip at the noises outside and run laps from the bedroom to the living room and back again. On cold days, we turn on hours of bird TV and watch them paw at the television while we make drinks and snacks before we jump back under the covers for video games or a reality series or some combination of both.
The weather jumps from warm and sunny to cold and snowy and we try not to panic about climate change. Mostly, we’re successful.
Historically, S.A.D. holds off for me until after the winter holidays have passed, but these last few months were different. The S.A.D. came in waves. I was laid off in November in the middle of a cancer scare and we held our breaths until the results of my biopsy came back benign almost halfway through December. The Christmas tree leaned as it spun in its base and even though I thought I hid the Christmas pickle well, it was discovered in seconds. Next year, I’ll be craftier.
Entering April, the weather continues to fluctuate, and so does the depression. Is it still S.A.D.? Where does one end and the other begin? My doctor recently adjusted my meds and I feel better, less numb, but still Off. There are a million reasons why—have you watched the news recently?—and another million reasons I’m able to get out of bed and function each day. Sometimes I make lists to remind myself. Other times I text friends and ask them to make lists with me.
Even though it feels to small, it makes me feel better almost every time.
When it doesn’t, I turn to my partners and our cats and say, “Help.”
I start and stop and abandon posts like this all the time, damning them to wither in my drafts until the next time spring cleaning comes around. They feel both too vulnerable and too useless, musings from someone whose woes aren’t worth writing about. I treated my first blog like a journal more than a public-facing archive, and now I wonder whether that approach is worth revisiting.
Maybe it will get me to blog more as I attempt to get back in touch with my writing process this year. Maybe it will force me to actually process some of my feelings outside of S.A.D., which makes me cry and wish for sleep as it keeps refusing to come.
This year, spring feels like a godsend, but I’m still learning what it means to be faithful.
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