"Are you SAD?"

A co-worker asked me this yesterday, referring to the seasonal depressive sads, and it got me thinking.

The last few weeks have been pretty rough for me, but for no particular reason. Yeah, weather has been getting colder and my public transit commute has been a special kind of hell lately, so I thought I was just feeling down because of that. But I feel like everything I attempt, whether it's as simple as getting to work or just trying to plan ahead a little bit is met with resistance. In short I've just been feeling generally down and discouraged. And angry. I have a lot of anxiety and anger, too. Plus my focus has been almost nonexistent, even writing and editing this post is hard to care about.

It's been especially bad since the daylight savings time change almost two weeks ago, so maybe the shorter days and lack of daylight combined with the other stuff really is affecting me. I always feel this way this time of year, but I think I'm more attuned to it this year since I'm working out more and not drinking alcohol as much to distract me.

For this very reason, I planned an extended warm getaway for the tough winter months, but that's still a couple months away. I've finally decided to get one of those phototherapy light boxes that a friend who goes through the same thing recommended, so hopefully that helps some. I'll go ahead and make a check-in appointment with my old therapist, too.

Anybody else got the sads? How do you deal with it?

I still can't feel my toes.

Full on Winter Blues Anger has set in, and while it hasn’t been especially freezing for the last couple weeks (we were lucky to have a mid-Jan heat wave of upper 30’s there over the weekend…) the longevity does its job and here we sit every late Jan into Feb wondering why we still live here ( I’m speaking for the collective Chicagoian here). Today started off especially rough. I hate the mornings I have a bad commute because it sets the tone for the rest of the day: anger and rage.

Every morning I have a choice: take the bus to the train, which is a shorter walk from my house, but takes slightly longer to get to work, and I have to be outside to transfer to the train; or take two trains, which is a longer walk (ie, longer time spent outside) and is technically longer (I pass my actual destination to transfer in the loop to my second train), but is actually a few minutes quicker than the bus route, and my transfer point is underground. One downside of the train is that it is ALWAYS crowded—for those that don’t live in the city, I’m talking pressed up against strangers so close that you feel they should have bought you dinner, or at least a drink first. Sometimes on the bus route, I can get a seat, but I emphasize sometimes. Bus Tracker has been a blessing to our lives, but sometimes, it just isn’t accurate and, like today, I end up standing out in the cold much longer than anticipated, and know that since it has been so long since the last bus, I’m going to be pressed up against the windshield for most of my ride.

So how do I deal? Loud, up-tempo music. I sometimes like to listen to a podcast, a sort of conversational story to distract me, but sometimes the train will be so loud I can’t hear parts of sentences, or I’m being leaned on in a way that I can’t even passively concentrate on what is being said (which is why it is so important to find a solution to my headphone shock problem—silence in these situations is much worse). So I turn to the music. Today I relied on shuffle; some songs that got me through were: Winter Gloves’ "Let Me Drive," The Ting Tings’ "Impacilla Carpisung," Housse De Rackett’s "Oh Yeah!," Prairie Cartel’s "Suitcase Pimp," and Jane’s Addiction’s "True Nature." By the time I got to the end of that list, my headphones were turned up as loud as they go…

How do you get through a crappy commute?

(Image from Pantagrapher via Chicagoist, 2007)