Seasonal Depression

I used to always think I had the worst seasonal depression. The moment we turned the clocks back, my heart would start it's long journey down to the bottoms of my feet, ready to chain me to the bedroom floor. Lock the doors when it gets dark, there's bad men out there. Don't stay anywhere in a public parking lot that doesn't have a streetlight right over your car. Waking up early for school 5 days a week becomes an even more impossible task when the morning won't show its face until I'm tucked away in a windowless studio, and hides again like an impatient child on the other side of the world just minutes before I clock out of work. When I'm the babysitter, I can chase after those kids, hug them tight. The sun never lets me win. I'm always standing in the corner with my eyes closed, my hands up, counting higher than I could when I was 8 and letting the world grow cold while I count.
I started showing up to work later. Because I could. Because the reunion with the sun was my only chance to look around, look at myself, with the ache that accompanies eyes when the irises stretch wide open like a yawn. Because the depression didn't hurt so bad when I had a long stretch of hours barricading me from the nighttime. But just like a coffee date at Starbucks, the coffee grows cold in your hands while you say farewell to your friend hurrying on with better things on her busy schedule. I doodle on the corners of my planner, bought with good intentions but left blank with honest ones, an hour spent on time more expensive than the chai latte.
Today, it's sunny. Spring is backstage, warming up, stretching, ready to leap onstage. But winter never fully lets go of the spotlight. Not even when the sweater on my back makes me sweat for the first time in a while. Maybe I don't fight hard enough. Or maybe I don't fight every day. But today, the season isn't matching my depression. It decided to wear a turtleneck sweater and grab my head like iron talons, while the thermometer is breathing a sigh of relief.
I hope one day this battle won't wear me out so badly. Or that my depression will be easier to describe. Or manage. But until then, I'm playing hide and seek with the pro. I'm counting to ten, and ready or not....