Tag Archives: SAD

January Blues, or 68 days until Equinox

January Blues and I don’t want to leave the house and do anything and the thing is, neither do you, so when I finally make the supreme effort and say, hey, you want to go do this thing and you say no, I want to die because I wasted all that energy I didn’t have on a rejection. January Blues and everything is dark again — the brief promise of Solstice that the nights are getting shorter seems like a lie, it’s still so dark.

Ok, it’s not so bad. Especially not in the afternoon, facing south, when there are no clouds…

Life is not so bad, even when there are clouds.

Life is pretty good.

Being alive is better than the alternative — most of the time.

The world is going to hell in a handbasket — who’s carrying the handbasket, by the way, and why a handbasket, and what is the origin of that expression, I want to know — but in my little corner of it, everything is ok.

Except it’s still dark and I want to hibernate.

Can you give me permission to spend January in a pillow fort?

Or in Cuba?

You: You could give yourself permission to do that.

Jane: We both know I won’t.

January Blues and a commitment to self to not cancel plans — very hard — I deal with it by avoiding making plans in the first place but also, if you ask, I’ll say yes, even though I don’t want to, because leaving the house is not a bad thing and being around other people is a good reminder that the outside world exists and that spring will come, eventually. (They all seem to think so.)

But also, it’s hard and noisy and I want my pillow fort. Why did I say I’d go to that party?

You: You could not go.

Jane: I said I’d go. I can’t cancel.

When you start cancelling plans, the world ends. True story. I refer you to March 2020.

Looking at the colour spectrum and wondering how much effort it would take to create January Yellows. I’d need to get through the Greens first, though, how is that possible?

Possible, if one is in Cuba.

I dream about Cuba.

I remind myself that life in Cuba s actually very hard. The socialist paradise does not exist.

I still dream.

January blues, but actually, not as bad last year or the year before. I can tell by March, I’ll be back to baseline. I buy red and yellow flowers for my sunny house, I wear bright clothes, I eat dessert.

January Blues but, hey, we’re a third through the month and then it will be February Slushies and then March Muddies but then April Yellows and May Greens.

I got this. You got this? We got this…

68 days until Equinox.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS According to the Grammarist.com, the earliest known documented usage of “going to hell in a handbasket” dates back to 1682:

“…that noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fanatical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms.”

This discredits the common origin story that during the French Revolution’s Great Terror, when the bodies of aristocrats and enemies of the revolution were separated from their heads via the guillotine, their heads fell into handbaskets and also answers my question as to who is carrying the handbasket — the Devil, obviously (but also, why handbasket and not just basket?).

Rumour has it, spring is coming

i

It’s not depression, I say. It’s February.

You: Baby, it’s March.

Jane: Look outside. It’s February.

The sun is back, though, and the weather forecast promises above weather zero again, so the prognosis looks good. I will probably make it to another spring.

But I’ve got to tell. you, kittens, the amount of energy I expend November through February to make sure I see March is excessive.

Perhaps that’s why I want to be in bed 12 hours a day.

It’s March.

So they say.

I expect I’ll make it.

ii

I’ve actually done ok this winter. Really. Two weeks in Mexico in November saw me through a crappy December. January and February were brutal but I made arrangements. I freebased Vitamin D. I went to the theatre, twice. I danced (twice!). I RSVP’ed to events and usually showed up. I took my sons places and I fed them decent suppers. I even went out for a 1:1 lunch with a friend once, and a walk another time.

I’ve had worse winters.

My best winter ever, though, was the one I spent in Cuba. And I had sun.

It’s true.

I’m basically a plant.

iii

It’s March, you insist, but I still need help ensuring I’ll be here tomorrow. Plans help. I make a list of road trips, activities. I buy plane tickets.

I ponder moving. Maybe next winter, I need a place with bigger windows, better heating.

Somewhere closer to the equator.

It doesn’t feel like March, not yet.

iv

Exercises to remind you life is worth living:

Make a list of all the people who love you (yes, you’re on it).

Make a list of all the things you’re grateful for. Coffee. Books. Butterflies. Cats — when they’re not in heat. Keerist. Why have I not spayed this cat yet?

Don’t read the news. Do’t think about P@lestine, the Sudan, the Congo. Don’t think about what a pathetic First World Loser you are.

Go out for a fancy coffee instead. But not Starbucks.

Go for a walk.

Do not hit the person who suggested you go for a walk. But also, fuck you, I walk to and from work every day, I walk the dog two or three or more times a day, just because you’re so pathetic and inactive a walk seems revolutionary doesn’t mean it’s a cure all, fuck the fuck off with your stupid go for a walk advice, seriously, it’s just a walk, did we not prove over the pandemic that walking around the block is actually NOT all that we need to be happy?

Don’t say that. Choose kindness. Remember, people mean well. Smile a fake smile for two minutes, then take yourself for a solo sheesha date.

Go to John Fluevog and wind show for shoes. Don’t buy any, though, because all the spare cash (what’s that?) in your budget is going to the heating and electricity bill and to bolstering grocery store profits.

Make a list of all the people who love you again.

Turn it into a list of all the people who would come to your funeral.

Plan your funeral.

Make it really good, a combination murder mystery-escape room-dead disco-wake-no one gets out alive kinda thing.

Stop spiralling. Now.

Eat some carbs. Or ice cream.

There’s a new flavour of soft serve — Matcha! — at Luke’s. Go try it.

Oh — carbs with ice cream. Do it.

Try to remember why you stopped drinking and don’t go to buy a bottle of wine.

Go dancing.

Ok, that helped, a little.

Make a list of all the people you haven’t seen lately.

Screenshot

Text one of them.

Make plans.

Don’t cancel them.

Make a list of the people you want to invite to your next birthday.

Tell your cat she’s beautiful.

Buy a new houseplant.

Don’t feel too bad if you kill it within two weeks. Everything dies, everything passes.

This too shall pass, this mood. You know it will.

Have you eaten some carbs?

Ice cream?

v

It’s March. The calendar says it’s March.

We made it, baby, 100%, it’s March.

So they say.

You: It’s March. I promise.

I almost believe it.

I think we made it.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS We made it. We totally made it. It’s March.