Goodbye SAD, Hello Spring

For everyone breaking out of their winter hibernation…

Can everyone sense it? That feeling of pure adrenaline accompanied by rebirth seems to finally be peeking out. In return the brilliant sunshine slowly pries every existence back open into the blistering spring. Isn’t it such a glorious thing? It’s unfortunate how much it doesn’t feel that way during the depressing throes of the winter.

Oh, how I’ve waited all season to unfold from my SAD, professionally known as Seasonal Affective Disorder. It’s like a nagging tick in the human brain that flares up in our coldest, darkest season. Scientists define it as an ailment that muffles serotonin and boosts cases of depression worldwide, with the most extreme cases usually landing at the coldest times of the year. The ones experiencing SAD find themselves inside out and unlike themselves, making “winter blues” seem like too tame of a name for it.

With determination, I took time this winter to hold myself accountable for that nagging SAD weight, implementing every extracurricular activity that would give me a sense of calm through the merciless gray winter winds. Fighting back the season, I wore extra layers of skin to scrape my way through the ice for a taste of the swollen mud I missed too much. Still, no matter how I tried to beat back the early darkness, there were no signs of life in the same cacophonous way life engrossed every other season.

So I lay in wait, allowing my spirituality to take center stage and guide me through the deadest of seasons. With heavy shoulders and a light heart, I meditated through each unrelenting thought. I’d found it so much more effective than the bare-knuckled fight I previously tried, I came out on the other side awake and refined. Through the endless twilight I kept the positives in my mind, remembering the breathing giving me life. All it proved to be was a reminder that the winter is only transitory, part of the impermanence that mindfulness teaches us to embrace. In an instant, the glacial season disappears, and soon after I can leave the SAD behind for a more permanent depression of the milder kind.

Now we have finally met the turning point. Clocks are officially clicking forwards as the sun begins to beam brighter than before. Our natural world is officially awakening, green and towering with life. The feel of brown bark and the sight of iridescent leaves, oh how I miss the sense of it all. As winter melts itself into the Earth, we can once and for all stretch and yawn, singing with the dawn of Spring.

To all my fellow SAD recipients who’s blood sits cold while awaiting warmer days, there is no need to fear. We’ve finally made it back to the beginning, tasting the filling feeling of restoration. With warmer, longer days on the horizon I finally feel lighter than my winter self. Can you already see the colors? It’s the radiant rainbow waiting for you at the end of the season, springing forward to swallow the blue sky with gold.