The Red Dragon verges on the lachrymose

I could fucking weep. Here it is, cocking squatting bullshitting Monday morning, and I fucking swear, it feels as though it was Friday night three fucking hours ago. This is the thing. Like a lot of people, I have a bit of a seasonal affective disorder. Key parts of my brain and personality, most of the ones involving enthusiasm and tenderness for example, shut down pretty solidly for ten weeks of the year out of what feels like sheer self-protection. I mourn that and I mourn the impact it has on the people I'm closest to - it's unpleasant to watch yourself being a bitch to the man of your dreams, for example, though one supposes it's rather harder for him.

And those ten shitty dead oversalted weeks a year are 20% or so of the reason I'm gagging to move to a place without real seasons. Whenever I hear some celebrity bitching about how they want to leave Los Angeles or wherever and live in a place with seasons, I want to fucking bitchslap them to PNG and back. No, bitch, you want a house in a place with seasons. And the second you get tired of the cold and the dark you'll fuck off back to the tropics. Shut. The. Hole. Brat!

Where was I? Right. Those ten weeks came to a close on Wednesday or Thursday last week, and I'm back to what I flatter myself is my 'normal', enthusiastic, tender self, certainly a self I like much better. But here's the thing. The ten dead weeks feel, as I mentioned, like self-protection. Because I know the days are so short and I'm so exhausted at the end of them it's a struggle to get anything human done in the evening. Because I know I'm going to have a cold or a flu or any other manner of illnesses that're going to fly up my ointment. Because I know that the weeks after the Christmas holidays are always the busiest, anywhere I've ever worked, and where I work now they're really really really the busiest, especially as the economy is crashing around our ears and we can spend all day uncovering new bankruptcies and cash flow problems, so if I care too much or prioritize other things that aren't work too much I'm going to be stressed and disappointed because I won't have the time.

So the way my brain always rationalizes the SAD lockdown is that it's better to be on a low even keel than take life in the wintertime as a series of rather disappointing punches to the face. But the SAD lockdown is over now, and that means we had a busy, delectable, fun, productive weekend, and Monday morning is coming as a fucking punch in the face. Holy shit. For a doggedly prescription-free person it makes it so clear why SSRIs come with a warning that they might make you kill yourself. The depression lifts and suddenly there's enough energy and giving-a-toss to make going back to work on Monday seem like the end of the fucking world. Suddenly I care enough about my life to really want it back.