What a winter it has been. That’s not said with feeling, but with incredible amounts of exhaustion. Family members getting cancer, family members dying, serious childhood illnesses, car accident, failing grades, teen drama, hurt husbands, and the oppressive darkness that hung over it all… I just can’t talk about it anymore.
I took another unexpected hiatus. I’m sorry. Winter tends to do that to me, and I don’t like it. But living in the greyest place on earth has a few drawbacks. And the biggest one is winter. You just don’t see the sun for 3 months. Like pretty much at all. In the short hours of daylight we actually do get, it is cloudy and dark. Human hibernation is completely possible. I have lived it these past 4 years, each winter.
Anyhow. I’m back. What a strange season to be on the other side of. Depression is a personal thing. Some people feel overwhelming numbness. That is not the way it effects me. It is like turning all my senses on high. Hearing a thump is painful (and I have 3 boys!), listening to kids cry turns into nails on chalkboard, and anything smelly or even strong has to be banished due to limited indoor airspace. I feel as though I am choking if someone sprays cologne across the house. It’s awful. And I spend a LOT of time ‘hiding’. By hiding, I mean, I teach school, make my kids food, then take a nap with the toddler, then set up some sort of activity (which includes the tv about 50% of the time) then go into my room to reread a book I have read 4 times. It’s not a ‘bad’ place to be. My children are loved and cared after… but when you know me in the summer… well, I am a totally different person. And a different mom.
It’s the second week in March. The days are almost a reasonable length, the sun has poked through at least 3 times in the past two weeks and I got to work in the garden in shirt-sleeves.
I’m breaking out of this funk. And thank God!
Yesterday was incredible! At about 11am the sun broke through the clouds and I could hear the angels singing it was so lovely. The sky was the color blue that you only see if you have had a lot of rain lately… the kind where you can see from Mt Rainier all the way to Mt St Helens. 50* and sunny. I dumped myself into house cleaning and projects with a fervor that I didn’t know I still had after this winter of mourning and darkness and managing chaos.
In the summer, my MO is generally tons of crafts and home improvement projects, my kids doing cool art, or fun games regularly, and we do school type things like hatch praying mantis or taking long hikes to see wild salmon. These are regular, not ‘special’ things we do. Special takes on a whole new meaning with building projects that transform the yard or something equally huge. That’s the person I am.
Except from the months of Nov - March.
Then I am someone else.
3 comments
Please tell me you've checked into Seasonal Affective Disorder...I finally did a few years ago and you would be AMAZED at how a simple lamp can improve winter functioning.
It cannot, however, remedy life's ills. I hope an internet *hug* will help at least a little.
Thank you so much for sharing this! This winter has been really rough. We moved a little over a year ago to a new town (with a 3 year old and a 2 month old at the time) and still haven't established a community here. That and -20 degree days made for one long winter. Here's to hoping Spring shows up soon!
The nature is so beauty and dangerous at the same time.
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