Lots of people get depressed during the cold winter months—so many, in fact, that there’s a name for it: seasonal affective disorder, or SAD.
Me? I’m the opposite.
I thrive during the dark days of winter but slowly peter down to an inevitable depression every year as the days grown longer and hotter.
Maybe it’s the fact that I hate the warm, sticky weather.
Maybe I hate all that extra sunlight, which keeps me at work (and awake) even more than I’m already inclined to be.
Or maybe this time around, it has something to do with the fact that today marks a year since my precious pug Chip was brutally attacked (and killed) by our neighbor’s dog.
Whatever the cause, I can report that this dip in my state of mind happens every year, without fail. And the only surefire cure? Autumn.
It doesn’t help the situation that this year, we had a particularly brutal winter and a rainier than average March and April, which screwed up my usual running schedule and left me feeling even more off-kilter than I would in an ordinary spring. I’m fighting my way back now, but it’s not easy.
For now, all I can say is, I miss you, Old Man Winter. No matter how much everybody else complains about your blustery ways, you’ll always have a fan in me.
