Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Over the Christmas holidays, my four year old brought home a wonderfully endearing, imperfect, asymmetrical, knobbly-looking stuffed bear that was given to her by her ingenious preschool teacher, Mrs. Carbary.  Lili's assignment was to name the bear, (no problem.  Sugarbear, of course) and to write in the bear's journal about his winter adventures.  One day as we sat at the kitchen table and I took dictation, this is what Lili had to say about Sugarbear's state of mind: I wondered if Sugarbear and I were kindred spirits because there are many winter days when I am hungry and every fiber of my being tells me I should eat chocolate and mashed potatoes and follow this action with a long nap.  I too am "made for summer...days" and tend to feel shivery, lethargic, and unimaginative during the cold, dark winter months. This year the cold months in Michigan have been exceptionally sharp and stinging, yet somehow I am doing okay.  After many difficult winters b...

I am having blog deja vu.  I am fairly certain I have used the above blog title at least once before.  I wish I were actually singing, "Here comes the sun doot'n-doo doo... it's alright..." but I am still waiting for the sun.  As I sit here on March 18th, the sky is white and the snow is falling rather confidently outside my window.  Much like the fearsome Honey Badger, Michigan don't care that the first day of spring is two days away. I have struggled this winter.  I have been very tired and lethargic and blah.  I have slept quite a bit, often unintentionally in the middle of the day.  On many days in February my bed seemed to magnetically draw me back to it after I had shuffled my older kids out to the school bus.  Lili, my three year old, would sit beside me watching Sesame Street, and when the show ended with Trash Gordon reminding everyone about the letter and number of the day, she would shake me violently and scream, "MOM...

I suspect that fall has always been rather beautiful in Michigan.  This is my third fall here, but this is the first time I have really appreciated the beauty associated with dying chlorophyll.  Trees have burst into flaming shades of red, yellow and orange.  My three year old and I sit at the window and watch the leaves gracefully cascade toward the earth while she squeals and I breathe it all in as though I were observing it intentionally for the first time. Allow me to back up.  I am a girl who adores summertime.  I love blue skies, warm water, peaches, and sundresses.  I love the sunshine and the way it makes me feel.  I begin to fret at the beginning of September because I know, from experience, what lies ahead for me as summer comes to a close.  The days get shorter, my brain becomes foggy, and I become as lethargic as an old house cat. This year I decided to be proactive.  Per my GP's referral, I v...

I have been stuggling this week.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I haven't even had enough "R" in me to struggle properly.  Thus, I stuggle.  Every year I stuggle right around this time as the days begin to get shorter.  It would appear that my brain and body truly need sunshine to function properly.  When the daily sunshine levels begin to decline, I feel as though a fog has settled over my brain.  All operations slow dramatically as my energy levels plummet.  I feel sad and overwhelmed.  This happens every year. I've tried slapping myself in the face and shouting, "Snap out of it!" a la Cher in Moonstruck , but that hasn't seemed to do the trick.  In the past spending early morning time in front of my old friend, the light therapy box and upping my intake of Omega 3 fish oils has been helpful in combating my seasonal depression.  Early in the morning I shockingly do not feel like standing in front of a blinding artificial light...

I continue to learn about myself.  I have struggled with wintertime blues for several years, but up here in Michigan the snow actually seems to be helping me.  For one thing it reflects the sunlight, and this is major since we all determined while living in the UK that the absence of sunshine is what drives me into the depths of apathy.  But in addition to simply magnifying that all-important light, it also happens to be beautiful.  There is something wonderful about rocking a warm baby in the big red rocking chair while looking out her bedroom window and seeing hundreds of snowflakes fall gleefully toward earth.  Falling snow is so much more pleasant than the weeping frigid rain that saturated my last five winters. Falling snow is truly joy-inducing for me.  This morning when I was driving with Lili to my Jazzercise class, I got so tickled seeing the multitude of snowflakes hurtling toward the windshield that I honestly had to pull the car over and laugh...

It's that time of year again, isn't it?  I didn't leave my Seasonal Affective Disorder across the pond in Wales unfortunately.  All week I have seriously struggled to drag my sorry behind up out of bed in the morning.  The fact that New Year's Eve brought us a balmy, rainy day that washed all of the sparkling white snow away hasn't helped my depressive moods, BUT it's new day and a new year, and I am choosing to fight my seasonal lethargy tooth and nail...as long as it's after 9 am. As has been the case for the past few years, we do our New Year's celebrating on New Year's Day rather that the night before.  This gives us a chance to celebrate with our traditional New Year's meal, toast with sparkling beverages and make wishes for the upcoming twelve months, and there isn't even a small part of me that misses the late night celebrating.  As Danny Glover's Sergeant Murtaugh would say, "I'm too old for that $#!*." I took ...