Upswinging

You know that feeling when you’re in the midst of a heated fight with someone, on the brink of tears and with a head full of wrong-doings and injustices, and suddenly the person you’re fighting with says, “Are you about to get your period?” And you realize you are, and that your hormones are having some sort of carnival in your bloodstream?

That’s kind of what it feels like to have been wringing your hands for months about how you can’t get out of this funk, and your relationships are all out of whack, and you’ve lost all your creativity, only to find yourself, on days when the thermometer expands to reach the 40 degree mark, skipping home from work, or laughing more than normal, and telling everyone how happy you are. It’s the most sheepish feeling ever.

Fortunately I already know I fight S.A.D. in a serious way. I remember days in Oberlin towards the end of February when I would leave my apartment and try to walk in the same direction as the wind so it wouldn’t blow snow it my face, but it just didn’t seem possible. Or I would see an old boyfriend and melt down at the unfairness of it all, or find myself heartbroken because some friend didn’t call me back when they said they would. I remember making an appointment at the counseling center when I just couldn’t pull myself out of the teary, weighted-down thing, and my appointment didn’t roll around for a couple of weeks. The day it came happened to be the first warm day of the spring, you know, when all the Ohio college kids get the kind of collective sunburn that makes you wince, and I found myself eating a popsicle and humming on my way to my appointment, where… I suddenly had nothing to talk about.

I can’t wait for that to happen. So far it’s just a tease, but I can’t wait to forget the feeling of never being able to get really warm.

As many people know, I did sustain a particularly crushing and awful emotional blow recently. Yesterday my mother called to say how proud she is of the way I’m handling it, but I say, Grief is Capitalism. All I’ve really done is join an overpriced gym, sign up for an incredibly expensive photography workshop, and go ahead and buy the camera I’ve been saving for for so long. These are all things I’d wanted to do; I just hadn’t because of the financial strain. But my parents are paying for the gym for now, because they don’t know what else to do with their delicate daughter, and I already had enough for the camera - this particular event just spurred my decision making.

I feel better, too. Different. Pried loose from something, if not by choice then by necessity. Ready for change. Ready for forward motion. It’s not always a bad thing to be so swayed by the seasons.