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There is no question. With or without an official medical diagnosis, it’s certain that I am afflicted with SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It happens every year. I like winter to an extent, but after a couple of months of it, I’ve had enough…3 months and I’m bordering on severe depression and utter insanity.
Beginning in November, I start feeling unusually lazy and unmotivated. I can’t get going in the mornings and I plop down on the sofa like a slug at the end of a workday and gaze blankly at the TV as though in a coma. I don’t want to go anywhere, don’t want to do anything, don’t want to see anyone. If life did not necessitate full-time employment, I would happily drift into a full-fledged state of winter hibernation until this dreary season was passed.
Here in the south, we are not even graced with any of the normal perks of winter, such as pretty snow. Frozen precipitation here is more often just sloppy sleet and freezing rain, which too often results in DAYS (sometimes WEEKS) without power (aka Internet and TV…EGADS!). Even in those rare events when we actual DO see white stuff, we’re expected to risk life and limb to show up on the job regardless, so we don’t get to ENJOY it while it’s here…which is rarely more than 1 day at best.
Painting, drawing, even writing…creative inspiration and endeavors…it’s the ONE thing, the ONLY thing, I want to do during this miserably depressing season. I would be delighted to hold up in a cave and just paint the winter away, if not for the unreasonable demands of responsible living and friends who just do not understand the typical inclinations of a hermit afflicted with SAD.
I had important things to do today. I SHOULD have ridden at least one horse while the weather is not miserably cold. Instead, I fed them and considered my responsibilities met in full. I should have taken my dogs to the vet for their allergy shots. I overslept instead. I should have gone to pick up a print job that’s going to cost me God knows what. Instead, I started a painting. I’m not finished with it yet. I’m never really finished with anything, which is one reason I love digital media…it’s always available to revisit and improve upon, or even completely rework. If only LIFE were so easy to revist and improve upon…even rework entirely…
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