spring has not sprung
a delayed spring is a prolonged winter, and prolonged depression
Spring isn’t my favorite season - that distinction belongs to autumn - but it is the most important season. Winters are a slog. They’re cold and dark and long and depressing. There is nothing good about winter and I spend most of those months in an emotional cocoon, curled up on my couch, retreating from the world, waiting for spring.
Spring comes in name only, though. The last days of March are cold and rainy and I look for signs that don’t appear. No little purple flowers or dandelions springing up on my lawn, no buds on the trees yet, no warm breeze that makes me fling my windows open. I long for the sun, for the smell of lilacs, for the days of wearing just a thin sweatshirt instead of the bulky winter coat I’m still forced to put on when I walk my dog in the morning.
I need spring to show itself in order to get out of my winter funk. When the days are endlessly cloudy and the wind is wild and cold, when it’s the end days of April and I’m still putting the heat on, it’s hard to break out of the doldrums. When winter is prolonged, so is the seasonal depression that comes with it.
Spring is renewal. It is an awakening, a blossoming. As the flowers and trees bloom, so does my mood. My entire being undergoes a seismic shift. I want to do things - clean the yard up, set up the outdoor furniture, plant new flowers and tend to the ones that will bloom again. I want to dust off my bicycle and take pleasant rides around the neighborhood, not even for exercise, but just to feel that warm air on my face, to bask in the sunlight, to feel like I’m moving forward. I make plans when spring comes; I want to see people and do things, I want to roll down my car windows and turn the music up as I drive to an outdoor restaurant or maybe an arboretum or the beach. Spring does something to my soul, it makes me feel alive after hibernating all winter. I crawl out of my cave and pay homage to the change in seasons.
But sometimes the seasons do not cooperate and winter hesitates to leave. There’s a thin layer of frost on the grass in the morning. The wind is brisk and cold, and makes me huddle under the hood of my winter jacket. I look at the calendar then look at the news reports of snowstorms upstate, of temperatures going down to the 30s at night here, and I think Mother Nature is a little confused. I hunker back down on my couch. I snuggle up with the dog under the blankets. I watch baseball as the rain pounds against the house, as the cold seeps in through my drafty windows and it just doesn’t feel right.
A delayed spring puts a damper on everything. I’m afraid I’ll lose the urge I had to clean up the outside of the house, to bring my spring and summer clothes forward and move the bulky sweaters and long sleeved dresses to the back of the closet. Any momentum I found when it hit 68 two weeks ago is lost as the weather acts like it doesn’t know the date. I’m afraid if I retreat back into my depression cocoon I’ll stay there, I won’t want to come out anymore and I’ll miss my chance to get things done, to enjoy what spring we get.
Fighting off depression is hard. I give up in the winter and just let myself sink down because I don’t have the energy to wage war with my brain. I expect that when mid-April comes, I’ll be buoyed by warmer weather and abundant sunshine. But so far it’s not happening this year. I put my heat on in the car this morning. I brought in the strawberry plant I got for Easter. Even though there are buds on the trees and I found one little purple flower on my lawn this morning, everything else it telling me spring has lost its way and is running very late. I need that distinctive change of seasons to move forward. I need to go to Home Depot and buy five bags of mulch and realize later that’s too much mulch. I need to shed my winter coat and put on a light sweater. I need to ride my bicycle and walk the boardwalk. I need a real spring. I feel I’ll wither without it.
I’m looking at the ten day forecast. There’s a teaser of a day where it will be near 70 but the rest of the days are in the 50s. I’ll keep checking every day and when I finally see a few days of temps in the 60s in a row, I will get off the couch and start doing my spring things. Until then, let’s huddle.