Ok, I will admit that today’s post was going to be a rant. I hate today every single year. It is the day that everything in my world has to get adjusted and readjusted and I really do not sort it all out until we spring forward in April.
As a kid, I used to love the extra hour it appeared that we got today. A whole extra hour to do whatever I wanted. Until I realized, that it is never an extra hour, it is just the hour they took from us in the Spring being given back.
I do not really care what the clock says. But I really, really do care about the light. The changing of the light and the shortening of daylight affects me gravelly every single year. I used to complain about the time change, now I realize what really bothers me is the light change.
I am an odd person. I know and admit this. I am particular and have a way about everything. I also admit and acknowledge this. And for the most part, I have worked very hard to find some middle ground for me and everyone else. I have bent, flexed, accommodated so that I am not in constant conflict with those about me. I have worked, with great effort expended, to see that just as I feel all these things so might other people and me feeling mine does not create any kind of hierarchy of feeling. Everyone’s feelings and needs matter, no exception.
So it is from this place that I send this post out, perhaps as a plea, or perhaps as a tirade, I leave that for you to decide...but as someone for whom the presence and absence of light gravely effects her life, please, for the love of all that is holy, please stop fucking with the light.
In years past I have been defiant, silently maintaining my own internal timezone that doesn’t Fall back. Eventually, this becomes exhausting, and untenable and I have to acquiesce and just accept that it is dark at 4 pm.
This year I am resorting to begging. Praying that the people in power are somehow persuaded by my blog to stop this incessant fucking with the light. Please. I know I am not alone...
My life fundamentally changes now. I can no longer walk the dog in the evening because it is now dark so early that I would maim and kill myself traipsing through the forest in the dark. I have thought perhaps a headlamp, but given the fact that my Border Collie is completely light phobic, all a headlamp would do is cause her to drag me around in the woods, chasing the light beams and cause both of us certain injury.
So the time change and resulting light change will sideline me now. I will believe and act on that belief that it is time to go to bed at 6 pm. It isn’t voluntary, it is physical. When it is light you get up and when it is dark you go to sleep. And so now my sleep cycle will start about 6 pm and I will be up at 2 am which sucks.
I have tried to have this bother me less. I have decided that I won’t care this year, every year. But every year, here we are again, right on the bleeding edge of causing me and others like me to suffer from the mismanagement of light.
It really isn’t a time thing for me, it is a light thing and I am praying that because I have made this connection, the powers that be will also. Winter is hard for everyone, why do we make it harder by messing with the light?
I know that my ranting will likely not change anything, but it helps me to get it out, instead of allowing it to ricochet off my insides causing mental anguished shrapnel. Better out than in...
For my part, I am going to work on finding the peace and love for being in bed at 5 pm. I am going to try to relish the down time while everything else in my being rebels and demands something totally different. I guess the good news is that since it is now going to be dark at 5 pm, I won’t have much to say about it since I will be getting ready for bed. You think I am kidding, ask my kids, I am not.
I will do my best to muddle through this light challenged time...this year really trying not to bitch and moan so much. I mean the world has a lot of problems right now and I know that my issue with the light change really does not rank on the list of vitally important. I do see that. And that is why I am going to keep my mouth shut after this blog. I will do my best not to complain and accept that things, even things that are totally uncool, can be accepted and moved beyond.
And I will apparently have ample time to work this out from my bed for the next four months...see you after 5 pm in April...
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!