Friday 4 September 2009

Hunkering down for winter

It’s the first week of spring and it has been getting cooler this week. But it’s still the week of spring. They know those things here as they have official dates for such things. The 1 of September is the first day of spring.
There spring fashion is the shops, they have a big flower exhibition at David Jones and to be honest it’s not that cold so I guess I could feel like spring.
My problem is, my brain and body is hardwired for September to be a pre-autumn feeling. It’s the time of the year when you can still wear your skirt out but you should bring a jacket and scarf if you are going to be out late.

This time of the year I start dreaming about casseroles and warm sweaters and start planning for Christmas. What I shall buy for people, what is my present wrapping theme, anything interesting to bake, yes I am quite obsessive about Christmas.
So life has thrown me a curve ball here a little bit, in my head I know I should prep for summer, start looking for salad recipes and think about what to wear to work when it’s 35 degrees outside. I’ve never done that before. But I don’t. I start dreaming about wearing black roll neck sweaters and tweed trousers and wether my brown boots could survive another season.

I have always had really bad winter moods; I get really moody and don’t want to leave my house. Normally I am able to stave off the worst in the autumn as I obsessively plan for Christmas and drown myself in sparkly glitter and wrapping paper, so the real winter blues doesn’t normally hit fully until late January/February.

Now I realise that this is in one part actually not feeling well when there is a lot of darkness around and one part the expectation that this will happen. Subconsciously I’m preparing for this. I’m collecting books and cheerful things that I can do to feel better in January. Even thought I know in my mind that I might not feel bad in January cause then it won’t be less than 5 hours of daylight every day. So maybe all the years I spent trying to learn to deal with my really bad winter moods I’ve also created a cradle for it, that expect it to happen, and that I accept that it is going to happen and maybe even in some strange little way look forward to a couple of months every year where my expectations of myself are lower.

It’s not that I think I make the dark feelings up, or that they are pretend, during that part of the year, as the very low level of me at that time of the years is quite severe, I just wonder sometime. What would have happened if I would have been born somewhere else, would the moods still be there, just relating to something different?

5 comments:

  1. Interesting thoughts! I know that there is a saying in Sweden that we have high suicidal rates, but I don’t know if we have it because we are more depressed, or it’s the same in other countries. I had a different kind of experience when I had Elvira. I never had any time for my self, and wanted to drink coffee all the time. I made a lot of cups of coffee, but it did never still my hunger for coffee. I was standing in the kitchen, drinking coffee, with a screaming baby in my arms and a 4-year old crying from the bathroom, and then I realised that I had connected coffee to sitting still, reading and having a “fika-paus”.
    So in my head I thought that coffee meant “lugn och ro”. Anyway, It seems like you will find out more about your self this spring and summer in Australia.

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  2. The brain is a very funny animal, and yours is funnier than most! I would certainly find it odd to have warm weather at Christmas, it's just not right. But if your low moods are connected to winter then surely you would have experienced them over the last few months? My wise mum once told me that it's not experiences which make you low, it's how you react to them. That's not to denegrate depression which is obviously a serious illness, but thinking positively has an important role to play. xx

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  3. I've heard that the reason for Swedens high suicidal rates is that we are good at registering them, other countrys are not. well well, I think that the darkness has a lot to do with you and me and everyone I know get really sad and depressed during the winter. And that because of the weather, you don't get to do funny things, meet people as much and be outside all the time. SO I hope you don't get the same low in Australia! bisou!

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  4. This young lady is going to win the Xfactor methinks....

    http://xfactor.itv.com/2009/episodes/video/item_200179.htm

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  5. I dont think winter is the most hopeless part of the year, its autum. Rainy, grey, rainy, greay, rainy, grey...I think that we tried to lighten up autums with all our birthdaypartys, but in the end, even they became a burden in the grey and rainy weather. Hopefully Maria winter will become a nice time for you, and if I could decide, winter would be warm and sunny in Sweden too!! 1000xx

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