Seventy percent hydrogen and nearly 30 percent helium. That determines about three-quarters of my mood and likely has all of your attention if you’re reading this.
As the weather goes, so goes my mood. Seemingly, so does everyone’s outlook as the gray skies melt away and the sun comes out to play. Daylight Savings Time, a holiday in my mind, came some three weeks sooner than in years past this year. To my delight, my computer would not set to the right time. I couldn’t have cared less as I stared at the sunset’at 7:30 p.m. As my pupils reset themselves from staring at the sun, I remembered that this is the way I feel every year, and have so since I was a child.
I lamented in an earlier column about my disgust for winter. Not because I don’t like the cold and I don’t mind driving in poor conditions. The sunset at 4:30 doesn’t really do it for me though. As I made my way through the depths of Oakland County on my way to see Clarkston’s finest take the courts and rinks, I hoped for the return of the sun. Sports, for the most part, happen at night, not during the day. My life sans-Helios felt lonesome. My guess is because it was always dark while I was at work. I was driving in the dark and it was still dark when I left. It should be daylight when you go in and nighttime when you leave, and that’s the way I like it.
I don’t know all the reasons for it, but I may be a victim in my sun deprivation. Seasonal Affective Disorder, appropriately named SAD for short, is my self-diagnosed problem. As soon as the sun comes back out, everything seems to return to normal.
According to the Mayo Clinic, ‘Winter’s short days and long nights may include feelings of depression, lethargy, fatigue, cravings for sweets and starches, headaches, sleep problems and irritability.?
The hope and prospect of warm, sunny days with endless sunsets keeps me going through the winter. Thinking about those days helps greatly reduce the negative effects of a cold and bitter winter.
I can’t imagine living in the Seattle area, also the birthplace of grunge rock. Go back and listen to some Nirvana, early Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains records. That’s not happy music by any stretch, but the musicians who created that are just products of their environment.
Being a local product, I wonder how life would be living in a warmer climate. With the sun staying out just as long as here in Michigan, would the warm weather cheer me up? Who knows, but many Michiganders are likely to find out sooner rather than later if the economy isn’t fixed.
I’ve heard if you change your situation to get rid of ‘problems,? they will just transpose into new ones. Don’t like your pay at this job, take a new one. Oops, the new higher-paying position makes you work twice as many hours’and so on down the line. Is it because as Americans we have it so good, all we can do is find little things to pick on, to the point where we complain that everything is wrong, when really things are okay? Any day you’re living, breathing, eating and have clothes on your back and a roof over your head, you’re doing okay. And some sunshine is really just frosting on the cake. Chocolate frosting, my favorite.