It’s Not Me, It’s Just Winter

Once upon a time, I used to work in the deep, dark corner of a school basement.

I was a piano teacher, and the school let me use a room in the basement to teach out of. This arrangement worked out fantastically well….except for the fact that I spent all day in a basement.

I drove to work early in the morning as the sun was rising, and I drove home as the sun was setting.

I felt like I never saw the light of day.

I really, really did not like winter.

I thought it was dark, cold, and depressing.

Then Anika was born, and I still taught a little bit of piano, but I didn’t spend nearly as much time in deep, dark basements, and suddenly, winter didn’t seem nearly so bad.

Ben and I started talking about the possibility of me being one of those people we had heard about who gets depressed in winter. Didn’t know much about it, and it didn’t seem super important at the time, because I was doing a lot better.

I kind of forgot about all of that.

Then we moved to camp, and I started to really, really love winter.

Camp is amazing in winter. It is so incredibly beautiful, and snow stays white until it melts in spring. Really. I didn’t know it could do that. I thought it always got dirty and yucky at some point.

But not in the woods. It’s just beautiful and white all winter long.

And I started to love winter because everyone around me loved winter, and it was a little contagious. People come to camp to have fun in winter. School groups and church groups come out here, and no matter what the temperature, they are out there skating and snowshoeing, skiing and tubesliding. When you are surrounded by beautiful winter scenery, and fires in fireplaces, and hot chocolate always ready and waiting for you the second you come in from the cold, it’s a little hard to keep having negative feelings towards winter.

But.

In spite of all that wonderfulness, and the fact that I was really loving winter now, I still was having emotional issues every winter.

Being a little dense, I didn’t connect what was going on. I found it ironic that we seemed to have a “crisis” every winter, and I just assumed that my emotional turmoil was a result of the annual winter issues that we kept going through. We went through some tough situations that were camp-related, we dealt with infertility and miscarriages, we survived five years of winters that just always had something big going on that was draining and stressful and hard.

Obviously it would leave me feeling down. Right?

But then this winter came along….without any kind of crisis. I was all set to enjoy the beauty and snow and the smell of smoke in the crisp air.

Except that I was still feeling anxious and slightly depressed, for no apparent reason.

And then time change happened. And suddenly, it felt like it was dark all the time.

It was like a switch got turned off in me. I withered like a plant without sunlight.

Ben was a little bewildered. “Last week you were fine! What happened in your life that made it so hard all of a sudden?”

And I couldn’t think of anything. Nothing seemed to have changed. I just suddenly felt like I had this enormous weight to carry around – like all the other winters. Except that this winter, there was no big stress.

It finally clicked. Maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that every winter was hard. Maybe it was just winter.

Ben wanted to help. He would really do anything he could to help me. Especially if I’m crying. So he surprised me with one of those “happy lights”. The kind you hear about that people use if they get sad in winter. Costco sells them. Who knew?

Now I try to bask in the blue glow of my “happy light” every day. I don’t really know if it’s working – It takes a few weeks to kick in, apparently. I’m still feeling pretty bogged down by winter.

But I’m noticing that spending time outside EVERY SINGLE DAY, and being with people make a very big difference. And I’m guessing that our three week trip to Florida in January will not hurt, either!

So that’s the deal with me this winter. I really don’t like sharing current struggles. I like to share all the wisdom I’ve gleaned, after I’m  through the rough patches. It sounds so much stronger and victorious.

But today, I decided it was time to just get it out there, because there is a good chance that someone reading this could be experiencing the very same thing as me. And maybe, reading this will make that person feel like they aren’t the only person in the world who’s feeling that way. Or maybe that person needs to know that a happy light is just a Costco away.

Or maybe….you need to know that sometimes, really big problems have a really simple explanation. I remember my friend saying, “I used to think I was such a bad Christian, about once a month. Then I realized it was just PMS!”

Well, I used to think I was just a really negative, depressed person. Then I (finally!!) realized it was just winter.

The good news in all of this is that the shortest day of the year is only eight days away, and then we are charging our way towards sweet relief, otherwise known as spring.

In the meantime, I will still try to enjoy winter as much as possible, because it really is a beautiful season. Just a bit too dark, for my taste!

How are you doing? Do you love winter, or are you just hanging in there until spring?