I talk about demons. What I mean is I joke about demons, because one, demons aren't real, and two, it is a particularly useful way for me to isolate and define the things that I struggle with during the winter, and three, joking is an attempt to make them smaller. Seasonal affective disorder, seasonal anxiety, these are hard to pin down. You can pin down a demon. It's a person. Ish.
So this is what demons do. They circle as night falls, as unerring as coyotes when the fire dims. They throw everything at once -- terror, mortality -- a barrage. I actually physically stay away from the windows as the sun goes down, because the dread is so sharp. Can you imagine? Dread, like clockwork, when it gets dark. Every day, right now. You get to the point where earlier and earlier, you anticipate; you fear the window shades, the clock, dinner, thinking of what time it is. All you can think is it's going to hit and it is going to be bad.
(This is a demon, too, the preparatory despair.)
It doesn't help much in the first dark hour to think of it as seasonal. It helps to think of it as temporary, which is another way to think of season. Time. It will be over, soon -- soon today, as it eases after it's fully dark, sometime around 6:30. I don't know why. It will be over soon this season, because the coping techniques start to work, and next month with the different slant of light. Some pharmaceuticals blunt the worst of it. The sun lamp gets me through it all.
I love this life up here. I love the little farm. I love the snow, the peace, the unbusy road, the blackberries and black-eyed susans, the usness. Demons aren't going to change our plan.
But demons are terrible, and northern ones are particularly terrible, and that's what I mean when I say the word.
So this is what demons do. They circle as night falls, as unerring as coyotes when the fire dims. They throw everything at once -- terror, mortality -- a barrage. I actually physically stay away from the windows as the sun goes down, because the dread is so sharp. Can you imagine? Dread, like clockwork, when it gets dark. Every day, right now. You get to the point where earlier and earlier, you anticipate; you fear the window shades, the clock, dinner, thinking of what time it is. All you can think is it's going to hit and it is going to be bad.
(This is a demon, too, the preparatory despair.)
It doesn't help much in the first dark hour to think of it as seasonal. It helps to think of it as temporary, which is another way to think of season. Time. It will be over, soon -- soon today, as it eases after it's fully dark, sometime around 6:30. I don't know why. It will be over soon this season, because the coping techniques start to work, and next month with the different slant of light. Some pharmaceuticals blunt the worst of it. The sun lamp gets me through it all.
I love this life up here. I love the little farm. I love the snow, the peace, the unbusy road, the blackberries and black-eyed susans, the usness. Demons aren't going to change our plan.
But demons are terrible, and northern ones are particularly terrible, and that's what I mean when I say the word.
Terrible.
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