against the darkness

the dark of the year used to weigh very heavily on my soul.

this year i am hardly noticing. i attribute this change in my recently acquired (july) habit of rising early. this time of year you're going to be awake in a lot of dark hours any way you slice it (you know, if you're awake a normal amount), and you can't control that.

what you CAN control is where you place your dark hours relative to your sleep.

what i have learned is that i rather enjoy three or four hours of darkness in the morning when i get up. by the time the sun rises i always feel as if i have ACCOMPLISHED something, by golly!

and when the sun goes down and i feel tired, it's only natural because it's almost bedtime.

used to be when the sun went down at four in the afternoon i felt tired and also depressed because there were still HOURS before bedtime.

it's not without its inconveniences. i have to remember not to do noisy things too early in the morning and that running the dishwasher and printing documents and vacuuming the stairs are better left until after 6:30 because my neighbor gets up around six most days and even though i don't like her i prefer to be polite.

also if i want to go out to dinner or something with other people i have to adjust my sleep because even though *i* consider four o'clock a perfectly fine time for an evening meal, other people will prefer to dine around six.

whatever. i can be flexible.

you know why? because i am not crushingly depressed! when your seasonal affectation grinds you down so far that you can barely move, it's hard to adjust to anything, including putting on clean socks.

rising early has sort of inoculated me against the darkness, and if i decide to sleep in (you know, until six or so) i don't feel i've lost too much of the day.

i find that laundry and changing the sheets and all kinds of chores seem insurmountable in the afternoons, but just as the sun rises i get a boost of energy and i am supergirl.

sweet.