It All Gets Better from Here

Happy Solstice! And welcome to my new blog!

I’m excited beyond measure to start one of these again. To share my writing and my thoughts with the world, to live with the imperfections of writing blog posts last minute, and to enjoy tweaking and perfecting those posts I write well in advanced.

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere), and my favorite day of winter. Now, let’s be clear, for those of you who don’t know me very well, I am a summer person. Born in August, a proud Leo, born and raised in or near hot deserts until I turned ten. I have always loved the warmth, the heat, the sun, the summer, the red landscapes of the American Southwest and the Israeli Negev.

But since I’ve chosen to live over and over again away from the desert due to family, career, culture, or friends, I’ve had to find ways to love the winter too. First, it was just enjoying the snow when we first moved to Massachusetts. Then in Pittsburgh, it was enjoying the snow days (4 in a row thanks to Snowpocalypse 2010). Then it was learning to snowboard in Michigan so I had an activity to look forward to every winter. And finally, here in Portland, where the winters are gray but snow is rare, I’ve learned to love the shortest day of the year.

When I first moved to Portland, I was very nervous. I moved here after being diagnosed with moderate depression to be closer to the support of my family. I also suspected that my depression might be more seasonal, and so I was worried that the gray city of Portland might make my condition worse. Still, aside from family, Portland is where I wanted to be. The culture of this city drew me as much as the presence of my family (and free housing) did.

Longitudinally, Portland is the northest (yes I made up a word) place I’ve ever lived (don’t believe me? Confused? Check out the map below). That means I get super late nights in the summer, where the outside is still light at 9PM. But it also means that, along with those clouds, I see more darkness in the winter than light.

Once I survived my first year here, a year that even the locals said was grayer than they were used to, I decided I wanted to find ways to live my best life. My second winter in Portland I made a few deals with myself:

1. I told myself it was OK to sleep more. Sleeping more and being tired were not necessarily signs that I was more depressed (I was very very paranoid about my depression becoming unmanageable again here), they were just a result of there being less sun. I thought of it as the human version of hibernation (PS none of this is scientifically tested or researched).
2. I told myself that I didn’t have to go to the snow if I didn’t want to (though the snow did end up coming to me that second year).
3. I told myself that taking Vitamin D was essential (and my friend told me that the recommended dose may be too low. Check out this article if you’re curious).
4. And finally, I told myself that I just needed to make it through the shortest day of the year. If I survive the shortest day, it all gets better from there. Each day the sun stays out a little longer.

So here we are. This will be my fourth (I changed that three times in case anyone was wondering) winter in Portland. And after telling some friends of this strategy for surviving these gray winters we decided to celebrate the solstice. So we’re getting together, having food, maybe lighting a fire, and just spending some time in each other’s company. One of the hardest things to me about the winters in Michigan was that it was significantly harder (because it was SO DAMN COLD) to get people together then. So spending time with people is a preventative measure for me.

I hope you’ve all made it this far, and that you all have lovely holiday plans and/or had lovely holidays. And thanks for reading my first post back!

P.S. If you’re a new friend/follower and want to check out my old blog, click this link. And enjoy!