The Depth of Winter

This is my unhappiest time of year.  Almost always.  Regardless of the social or professional circumstances of my life, late January feels uniformly bleak.  Like this image, taken from a google image search of "bleak."

It's cold.  It's dark.  It's gray.  It's been this way for a few months, and after all my non-California years wondering why January is always such a depressing time, I've learned that I crave light and warmth.

The one lovely thing about seasons is that they change--always.  Even if some freak thing happens where we have a cold spring and summer (unlikely, in these increasingly warm years), the days will get longer.  Sunlight will return.  One day, I'll drive to work and it won't be dark.  I'll get home in time for a twilight run.  If only the outcomes of the rest of life's vicissitudes were so sure as the return of light and longer days--how comforting it would be to know that a professional funk would give way to more hopeful prospects, that a dull social calendar would grow brighter, that poor health would gradually improve.  But for now, it's late January, so the most positive thing I can muster is that I hope--I hope--that the darkness in my heart lifts soon as well.