Tag Archives: seasonal affective disorder

My Annual Spring Cleaning Motivational Speech to my Family

Hello, beloved family. You know how every year I deny having Seasonal Affective Disorder even though we all know I go into full on Goblin Mode for five months straight? Well, guess what…

*dramatically throws back window curtain*

Spring has finally arrived in New England! And not False Spring, where we get a couple of nice days and then it snows. And not False Spring Part Two: Hail to the Sleet. 

Oh no. Real spring. The sun is shining, the trees are green, and everywhere is the beautiful grunting sounds of people struggling to set up their air conditioning window units. 

And, of course, the official sign that summer is on its way…

*dramatically thrusts out one leg*

I’ve switched out of my sweatpants and into my leggings. 

Do you know, dearest family, what this means? I’ll take it from your groans that you do. Yes! It means that I will begin manically spring cleaning the house, dragging you all into chaos against your will! Because I finally have Vitamin D coursing through my veins and my brain has started producing dopamine and serotonin again. 

I can tell from your whimpers that you’re just as excited about this as I am. Excited to cast aside the resigned acceptance we have for our filth and clutter and cramped tenement-style conditions and eager to embrace no longer being garbage people. 

Yes, my loves! We don’t have to live like this! Just this morning, I finally cleaned out and organized that one cabinet in the kitchen that was driving me insane and suddenly it was like a whole new kitchen. So I cleaned out another cabinet. And then the fridge. And threw away all those frozen leftovers in the freezer that we were never, ever going to eat but thrust in there haphazardly because it’s wrong to waste food. 

As it turns out, 90 percent of my desire to burn everything down and start over is the fact we just have too much stupid crap. 

Just imagine the possibilities! All that stands between us and the house of our dreams is a little bit of deep cleaning! And by little bit I mean A LOT. We are super gross. 

Like, what if you kids actually had room in your rooms to play? Beautiful, clean, organized rooms! With a place for everything and everything in its place. And absolutely no place for the 300 or so dried out markers scattered around because we will finally throw them away. I’m so pumped by the idea of this I even wrote a song about it…

“We need room in our rooms

[Room in our rooms]

Room to roam, room to grow

[Room in our rooms]

So we stop being so embarrassed on Zoom”

OK, fine, I’ll stop singing. But you have to admit it was pretty catchy. And the point remains, we could take pride in where we live. I know we’ll never have nice things but we CAN make our crappy things slightly less crappy. We could be the kind of people who, instead of cramming more things into already overstuffed drawers, get rid of all the things in the drawers we don’t need. 

We could have drawers that close! Oh, dare I dream? 

And all those stains we’ve had so long that we just consider them part of the family now? We could DO something about them instead. We could finally get rid of that giant bag of old batteries we have because we know we’re not supposed to throw them in the trash but we’ve always been too lazy to actually google what to do with them. We could even, and honey, get ready to catch me in case I faint, put the NEW FILTER we bought eight months ago into the BRITA. 

A whole new better life awaits us!

So what do you say, gang! Who’s with me? Let’s do this!

I can tell from your resounding silence that you might not be as enthusiastic as I am about all this…

Anybody want to hear my Trash Can Song? It’s pretty inspiring…

*starts banging on lid like a drum*

“This is the trash can song 

[the trash can song]

Because who can? He can! The trash can can!

[the trash can song]

Ooooh, he can take your cans and take your old pans…”

No? I have also prepared a lovely candy wrapper rap. WITH explicit lyrics. 

OK, fine. Fine. For every bag of trash you gather I’ll give you $5 and I’ll give $10 for every box filled with clothes and toys we can donate. Yes, you too, Daddy. 

Now there’s the energy I was looking for! 

When that false spring hits hard

Everything is cold & dead & stupid & I hate it

I’ve been sitting in this coffee shop for exactly 46 minutes now. And yes, I see you over there, Annoying Hovering Couple, with that dual stink eye you’ve been giving me for the last 17 of these 46 minutes in the hopes I might feel pressured to hurry up and finish my business here so you can have my table.

But the joke is on you. Because I can’t think of anything to write and so will probably die here at this table. So take that croissant you pronounced in the uppity French manner and shove it.

Ugh. Sorry. I’m just in a foul mood. Is there anything worse than January? Well, yes. I mean, torture is pretty high up there. Human trafficking. War. Extreme drought. Animal cruelty. That gross YouTube guy. Culottes. People who put raisins in chicken salad.

But January comes in at least a solid 770 on the list of Worst Things.

It’s cold. Everything is dead. There’s only one major holiday and you spend it hungover.

The bills are starting to roll in from Christmas. Nothing fits because of those ten (fine, 12) pounds you gained over the holidays. Everyone keeps bragging about how they’ve already done their taxes while you’re over here like, it’s not even May yet. And then they correct you and tell you they’re due in April but you don’t care because you got a mad case of Seasonal Affective Disorder and everything is stupid and dumb and ugly and stupid and I hate it.  

winter3

And there are still two months of winter left to go.

Ugh.

I know. I know. First world problems and all that. I’m trying to see the bright side. I really am. I even flirted with the idea of giving that Danish idea of hygge a whirl. Because lighting a candle and wearing a big floofy sweater will solve everything. But then everyone on the Internet kept arguing about how to actually pronounce hygge and I got annoyed and started drinking copious amounts of wine while randomly yelling out “I’m doing Hoo-GAH!” until my husband made me go to bed.

Honestly, it wouldn’t be that bad if I could just curl up in bed with seven blankets and read a good book. Which I would read for all of five minutes until finally giving up the facade and just binge-watching all the seasons of “Arrested Development” for the third time on my laptop.   

But I can’t. Because I made the seemingly well-thought out decision to have children.  

Don’t get me wrong. Having children is great.

In the summer.

When you can go places and do things.

But in the winter? Before they’re old enough for school? Having children is inhumane.

Every morning, there they are, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and not caring that you got drunk practicing hygge the night before. Eager and ready to do things no matter how crappy it is outside. Happy and healthy and impatient for you to throw out a bunch of creative and imaginative and educational crap that their spongy little brains can soak up.

All of which I am happy to do.

In the summer.

And most of the early fall.

But all I want to do right now is hibernate in my blanket fort.

Sigh. Luckily, my love for my children is slightly stronger than my hatred of January. Which is why I took down the “No Kids Allowed” sign outside my fort. And why I will suck it up and smile and throw out a bunch of creative and imaginative and educational crap for their spongy little brains to soak up inside our fort.

Because I am a good mom.

And also because I’m trying to distract them from the fact that I am clinging to their tiny little furnace bodies for warmth.