Every year around November, I become convinced something is terribly wrong with me.
I stop wanting to go anywhere.
My social battery dies a quiet death somewhere around Halloween.
The thought of leaving my house after dark feels unreasonable at best and personally offensive at worst.
By January, invitations sound less like opportunities and more like administrative burdens.
Meanwhile, summer me is unrecognizable.
Give me 4:30 a.m. sunrises and 10:00 p.m. dusks and I become absolutely feral with optimism.
I wake up before my alarm.
I have hobbies.
I make plans.
I garden until I can’t feel my lower back.
I want to host parties and sit on patios and go golfing after 7pm and take a walk post-dinner and somehow squeeze three lives into one day because there is still light left and we should probably use it.
Summer Me and Winter Me Barely Know Each Other
Summer Katy and January Katy would barely recognize each other in a lineup.
For years, this used to surprise me.
Every single time.
Every fall I would make ambitious winter plans.
This would be the year I finally became someone who loved cozy networking events in February.
This would be the year I embraced winter sports.
This would be the year I became the kind of person who leaves the house willingly after sunset in Wisconsin.
Reader, it never was.
Instead, I spent years fighting my own seasons.
Judging them.
Resenting them.
Trying to optimize my way out of them.
To be fair, I have some help these days.
Medication helps.
Vitamin D helps.
Knowing what to expect helps most of all.
I still have seasonal affective disorder.
I just don’t have seasonal surprise disorder anymore.
I Don’t Have Seasonal Surprise Disorder Anymore
That part turns out to be important.
Because once I stopped expecting January me to behave like July me, I could start planning accordingly.
I stop scheduling evening commitments in the dead of winter.
I stockpile books.
I lean into soup season.
I protect my energy like a tiny woodland creature preparing for hibernation.
And then, almost imperceptibly, it happens.
One evening I notice the sun is still up at dinner.
A few weeks later I hear birds before coffee.
The first daffodils show up.
The windows open.
And just like that, I return.
Not improved.
Not fixed.
Returned.
For a long time I thought consistency meant showing up exactly the same way all year long.
Now I think consistency looks more like trust.
Trusting that winter me isn’t lazy.
Summer me isn’t manic.
Spring me isn’t unrealistic.
They’re all me.
Just under different conditions.
Trees don’t apologize for losing their leaves.
Gardens don’t panic in January.
The geese don’t hold conferences about whether they should have stayed longer.
Nature seems perfectly comfortable with seasons.
Humans are the ones insisting we should bloom year round.
I don’t know that I believe that anymore.
Maybe Humans Have Seasons Too
These days I rise and set with the sun.
I know who I become in February.
I know who arrives in June.
Neither version is wrong.
They’re simply seasonal.
And honestly?
Life got a lot easier once I stopped trying to make January Katy behave like July Katy.
🎟️ Permission Slip
Permission to stop being surprised by your own seasons.
You don’t have to produce summer energy in the middle of winter.
Some seasons are for blooming.
Some are for resting.
Both count as living.
