Dark Days and Long Nights

Pikes Peak in December, looking dark and cold.

We're fast approaching the winter solstice. Saturday, December 21st, will be the shortest day of the year. I'm synched with the sun, as though my farmer ancestry is in control of my mind and body. You can't plow those fields by candlelight!

When the days are less than 9 1/2 hours long, my world implodes. As daylight shrinks, so does my life. My brain believes the sun is slowly disappearing. Forever, probably. Leaving us in perpetual darkness and cold. We'll all surely die.

The past couple weeks, I'm waking up without that signal of sun glowing through the curtains. Maybe that part of my ancestry hailing from Norway is awakening. The days are dark and the nights are long. It's time to go a-viking!

I understand on a rational level that longer days will soon return. Until then, I'll struggle to stay upbeat and busy as I fight to slay the dragon of SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Am I the only one? Or do you have the urge to hibernate, or perhaps go a-viking, when the days are short and the nights long? What are your coping mechanisms?

One of mine is to write. I have several fiction projects going that take my mind off the dragon outside my door.

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