Thursday, January 01, 2009

And so it begins

January and February tend to be my worst months. My Seasonal Affective Disorder - which I think is more a hibernation atavism than anything else - kicks into high gear around now, with the extinguishing of the Christmas lights that kept the nights merry and bright for the last month or two. Even though the days are getting longer throughout this period, the memory of sunny days is getting farther and farther away.

I only took one "Intersession" course in college. Intersession was a compressed semester tucked into the weeks between the Fall and the Winter Spring semesters. Courses ran longer each day, and more frequently each week. The course I took was (I believe) an Electricity & Magnetism lab, so most of the work was done in the class itself. I spent most of my non-class hours sleeping.

One of the reasons I started this blog - and there are many - was to establish a record of my daily life for my own reference. I've used it that way quite a bit when I'm trying to remember what I was doing at some particular point in the last four-and-a-half years. It's interesting to review the records from January and February for each of these years to see just how uninspired I was feeling in those months.

It's sad, really. I feel like I lose two months each year, one-sixth of every calendar. And there are several significant events in these months: my birthday, someone else's birthday who is close to me, and then of course the after-Valentine's Day candy sales.

Working where I am working at the moment helps a bit, since my work environment is brightly lit and evenly warm. If it weren't for the occasional window I wouldn't even know what the weather outside was like.

But I'll get by. I've been through this forty times already. This will be my forty-first trip into the gray haze that is the beginning of the year. By the beginning of March, barring any disasters, things will start to look hopeful again. By the end of April everything will be sunshine and happiness again.


Powderfinger, "My Happiness":



Title reference: From the Babylon 5 opening titles, season 5, spoken by Vorlon ambassador Kosh.

3 comments:

anne said...

Hey there!

Happy holidays and such!

Regarding the seasonal disorder thing, some freinds and I were once lamenting the bleakness of Januaryfebruary and wondering about finding a way to combat it. We eventually came up with the only logical choice - a Boilo Fest. That was 9 (I think) years ago now and the Boilo Fest has grown to include about 20 varieties of boilo and about 40-50 folks looking to drink away the mid-winter blahs.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, try drinking more.

Or, alternatively, come up with some kind of event you can look forward to each year around this time.

Or drink.

Either way, spring isn't all that far away.

D.B. Echo said...

Haha! I can celebrate the return of Anne, at least to my comments! I've missed you so much!

MaryRuth said...

I used to get this too, it is one of the main reasons I moved from WI. Have you ever tried a light box? Coincidentally, I saw directions for one on makezine.com just the other day. The guy even used CFLs. I went back there to find the link for you, but no luck--maybe you could do a little more poking around there if you were interested.
Anne's right, there's always drinking! =)