I am among the lucky who deeply experience the annual joys of seasonal affective disorder, even here in the South. For me, it kicks in each year about early September, as daylight hours noticeably start slipping away earlier, and earlier, and goddamnit, where did my day go? It’s a lousy thing, SAD. Symptoms overtake me seemingly all at once, as quick-onset bouts of often grinding depression, unremitting fatigue, mental fog, joint and muscle pain, headaches, and carb cravings. And every year, I’m surprised by it, as if it’s never happened before.
So I am the less-than-proud owner of two full-size light boxes (one I bought, one a gift from my sister Marlyn), plus a small blinding desk gizmo at work, a slightly larger desk sunlight-lamp at home, and even a green-glowing visor-style light hat given to me by my similarly SADdened sister Michele that makes me look like some possessed tennis player gone to seed.
I am, no getting around it, a creature of light. And by that I do not mean optimism, or some other bright euphemism. I mean actual fucking light.
My first wife used to joke that I was a plant in people clothing, that she had never met anyone so profoundly affected by his outside environment. It’s funny cuz it’s … well, it’s not funny.
Hell, I sometimes joke myself that my actual birthday is when Daylight Saving time again begins each spring, because it feels like a big part of me is reborn. That extra light is certainly present enough, the gift that keeps on giving.
The only time I can recall, as an adult, not suffering from this weird affliction, this seasonal juicing of my constant drag-ass depression, was when I lived for 10 fabulous too-brief months in Key West, at the literal turn of the century. I miss that limestone rock of sudden thunderstorms, endless hibiscus flowers, sweet bougainvillea scent and sulfur stink pretty much always. But never as much as this time of year.
So, yeah, I use the hell out of those various light boxes in the darker months. From September until at least late February. And sometimes, when that foul beast depression is nipping at me in spring and summer, I’ll flip on a light box and camp in front of it with some favorite music, because maybe, just maybe, it’ll help.
Yet I can’t honestly say I notice a direct difference from using all or any of these things. But I can say I notice a big one when I do not.
The light box in my home office is, however, a source of absolute in-the-moment joy for some members of my household. The feline contingent, that is, as you see, in abbreviated number, in the picture at top. When I’m working at home, I often just leave that particular light box on for my much-loved meowsers, pretty much all day; four, and even occasionally all five, of them can then be found radiating outward in front of it. They’ll sleep like this for hours, stretching with kitty grins in the soft warmth, like it’s the best damn thing in the world.
They are, you might say, happy SAD kitties.
Funny thing, but I sometimes think I get more from their joy in sunny slumber than I do from the light itself. And I’m good with that.
Take your peace wherever the hell you can find it.
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