Here's Hoping that Time Flies, even when you're NOT having Fun

“Here I sit like a bird in the wilderness.” That’s the first line to a very annoying song to be sung while waiting for someone to come. If you want someone to really hate you, go ahead, sing it. The rest of the words are “waiting for you to come,” repeated enough times that it explains why people get angry enough to kill when they hear it. And then you repeat the first line and begin again.

I mention it because I’m waiting for Spring to come. When I shared this, my husband reminded me that it is technically still Fall. This is not something on my “ways to stay happily married” list. But I knew it for what it was, an irresistible urge to get a rise out of me, so I ignored the comment (which IS on my "ways to stay happily married" list).

The happiest day in December for me (and this reveals that I am officially no longer a child at heart, and the magic of Christmas is marred by the stress I experience over the spending I’ve done) is Winter Solstice. Because that means that from that day forth the days will be getting longer.

I love the light, I need the light, and I long for the light. Endless, dark, winter days are no good for me. One year we had an inversion that lasted for six weeks. This means that a pocket of clouds hung over us for over six weeks. It was like living in frozen fog. I was capable of seeing the beauty in the frost lined fences and trees. Even the barbed wire looked beautiful with its lacy frost. It was very Dr. Zchivagoesque. But it was also very dreary, never seeing the sun. I felt my spirits sinking, sinking, sinking.

I always knew that I responded to the light of summer, and dreaded the darkness of winter, but this was when I learned for sure how much of a difference it made in my life. When we would travel out of our Basin and over the mountains, we would reach a point when we rose above the fog. I would feel my spirits soar, it was like taking off a heavy cloak of gloom. Likewise, when we returned home I would see that wall of fog and would feel my spirits sinking as we drew closer. It was outside of reason, that it made so much difference. It’s not like we didn’t have plenty of lights on in the house. But there is something true and real about the sun, that is not found in incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. They are shadowy substitutes compared to the real thing.

After it was over and the clouds lifted and I could feel my real self again, I vowed that if it ever happened again I would spend the couple hundred bucks it takes to get one of those special full spectrum natural light box thingamajigs. That would be a small price to pay for sanity.
I’ll tell my husband it’s either that or a trip to the Bahamas for the winter. Price, after all, is always relative. Or I can put on my “bug-eyed woman over the edge face” and ask if he wants to wake up to that every day. I don’t think there will be any resistance.

In fact, I’m wearing that face all too often, these cold days. I notice he’s getting serious about searching out a place for us lately– could be a connection.......

As I wither in this cold, it makes me grateful time flies, and there’s never enough time. Because that means this month will hurry up and get over with, and the next, and the next, and then it will be Spring again. I can just feel it now...

Shivers of Joy in the Journey