So tired. So very tired.

I have no energy these days.

My iron is fine. My cholesterol is fine. I’m working out 3 times a week (I’m doing 4 mile jog/walks, Yay for me). In general I’m not staying up too late and most mornings I ignore my alarm clock until I’m darn good and ready to get out of bed. But still, I just can’t seem to be energized about anything. Even the other day, I went for a long workout, which is supposed to energize and later that afternoon, fell into a two-hour swoon on my sofa. It was a great nap–the kind that leaves one feeling cat-like and langorous for hours, with a shadow of that warm blanket still on your skin and in your muscles. But I felt guilty about taking it. Ironically, at the time I’m feeling lethargic, is my busiest work time of the year. So, it feels like I’m slogging through this West Coast slush. I’m getting it done, but it’s a struggle.

My latest theory is that it’s the winter. I’m suffering from SAD. And then that makes me cross. Why does every feeling have to be classified as a syndrome, an ailment, an illness? I just feel tired, sometimes a little melancholy. Can’t I just feel melancholy? Does that mean I’m suffering from clinical depression? If everything else is sleeping in nature, why can’t I?

I seem to have trained myself to believe that whatever I’m doing, feeling or being at any given time it the wrong thing. I’m tired, I shouldn’t be. I’m napping, I shouldn’t be. I’m sad. I shouldn’t be. I’m beginning to have a small niggling, persistent thought. Maybe the feelings I have, the impulses for action (or in my case non-action) are the absolute right ones. Maybe it’s right to be in touch with the seasons and this season is the time for hibernating, sleeping, fallowing. I need to wax and wane in the same way as the seasons. This is the right time to be curling up on a sofa with my blanky, a good but undemanding book, drinking coffee with cream, or maybe a large glass of red wine depending on the time of day. Good chocolate. Hot buttered popcorn. I want to write bad poetry, chat endlessly about life with my nearest and dearest. Snuggle with my family.

I am awaiting the equinox. I would like to feel the first green shoots coming up through the still cold ground. Feel the cold breeze with a warming sun of spring. I want to be energized and bubbly happy. But, here I am in the middle of winter and it seems I must stand where I am. Or lie down where I am. This year, I’m not going to wish it away. I am going to do the unthinkable in our hyped up, gotta keep on moving society. I am going to enjoy being low-energy. I am going to enjoy doing just the essentials to keep everyone fed and hygienic. I am going to enjoy my naps. Naps are now my quiet revolution. So there.

And now, when people ask me what I did on the weekend I am going to look courageously in their eyes and say “Nothing. And it was great.” They’ll feel uncomfortable, but I won’t.