My Sunday More Light Feeling

Daylight Savings Time ended at 1 AM this morning.  As my friends know, I really don't do very well for the first few days or weeks of Standard Time.  I don't know what it is exactly.  

Maybe it's because the first couple of days it feels as if the dark just falls on top of you out of nowhere.  Maybe it's because I can't play golf late in the afternoon.  Much of my neighborhood is not particularly well lit.  It is unwise to go out for a walk or run without some reflective gear on.  And it has to be said that crime goes up a little when the darkness arrives sooner.  CST is a pain in the butt.  

Then again, maybe I dread CST because it heralds the beginning of the inaccurately named Holidays.  While I tolerate Thanksgiving reasonably well, I have absolutely no use for Christmas.  And very little for New Year's Eve.  And it occurs to me that with that latter remark, this is the earliest in the calendar year that I have started bitching about the Holidays.  On the other hand, there is basketball to watch along with the bowl games.  As long as they keep making whisky I can get by.

One of my friends told me that he and some of my other friends were moderately concerned about me when CST started right after I retired.  He said that I have a tendency to "be a little blue" at the start of CST.  They thought that after all the stuff that had gone on prior to my retirement combined with my complete discombobulation at not having structure in my life,well, they were worried.  

While I am fortunate to have friends that keep watch over me, I didn't think the slight malaise that envelopes me briefly at the end of Daylight time was particularly noticeable.  But I guess it was.  And, seeing as how I find myself typing this, I guess I lived to get beyond November of 2011.  

Not everybody is like me.  I have a friend who is just the opposite.  She gets depressed at the advent of Spring. Which I find unfathomable.  She actually likes the dark and to a lesser extent the cold.  Conversely, she finds my lightened disposition around March to be intolerable.  And she reminds me of this without surcease.  

To each their own.

This year I have a plan for when the lights go out.  Since we tend to stay indoors more during this wretched season, I plan to be productive.  My closets are a disaster.  I plan to straighten them up and donate a bunch of stuff to Goodwill.  I have some book reviews to tend to.  And I need to figure out if I am going to practice law again.  Or maybe I don't.  

The deck is repaired and soon both it and the front porch will be strung with lights and lanterns.  Just in time for the Holidays!  Seriously, I plan to entertain more than I have.  I like to cook.  I like having folks come over.  I need to get back to that.  

Goethe's last words were "More light.  More light."  Well, around 4:30 this afternoon, the light will go away again.  And I won't like it one damn bit as per usual.

But this year, I gotta plan.  This year I gotta plan.