Muted

I've become convinced that I suffer from S.A.D. [Seasonal Affective Disorder; you know, the one where you become depressed because you don't see the sun often enough]. It's quite plausible. Here the sun sets around 4 or 4:30 every day and doesn't rise again until, really, after 7AM. Other than ~8 minutes walking back and forth to school, I don't step out all day. Weekends are often little better, cooped up as I am inside, doing work, fretting about the work that I am not doing, trolling the internet to forget about said work and said fretting as inadequate coping mechanism and trolling the internet as even more inadequate coping mechanism.

View from the bathroom window. I love the bare trees in winter.

Back home where the sun stays out longer I used to go for hourlong runs at least once a week, even in winter. The commute to work included at least a half hour walk along the Castro or in the TL/Richmond, or else it would take forever to wait for the bus to come. I constantly stepped out during lunch, during breaks, for walks around the block or into little alleyways to get away from work.

It also doesn't help that I've been feeling down recently. You're being too hard on yourself, my mother would tell me if she was here or if I let her into this little private chamber of thought. Give it time, let things settle in, don't expect so much and set your standards so high. Or, don't overthink things. Get out and do something else. Treat yourself.

I'm trying mom. I'm trying every little trick that I know, even the ones from you and dad that I've mentally archived Just In Case. But at least when I blame it on S.A.D., it gives me an excuse to get out and get some fresh air. Vitamin D. And I can fool myself into thinking that the Vitamin D is doing the trick. It's like a free placebo with a realistic biological mechanism, otherwise known as something easy, something concrete that my mind can cling to as a very last resort. It's going in the Just In Case folder.