I don't know why, but every winter I start to feel terrible.
It's a feeling I can't describe very well. I feel discouraged and my desire to do my favorite things is diminished. Small failures lead to catastrophic spirals that make it so I don't even want to try anymore, even in the areas I normally excel at. My dreams start to reflect my anxiety, and I'll find myself beating nocturnal demons like Ivan Drago tried to do to Rocky Balboa in Christmas day.
My schoolwork suffers, I sleep either too much or too little, and my relationships with friends and family becomes strained as my patience and will to mask my secrets fails me. I avoid those I look up to so I can keep my feelings hidden because I know they'll see right though me and try to help — which is kind, but unwelcome because it would make me face my problems.
When I was younger, I didn't notice any patterns of negative attitude or behavior. Maybe that's because I had ways of coping with it. Kind of.
When I lived in West Jordan, my family's property had several trees in the back yard. They all had to be trimmed and sometimes hewn down. My responsibility was to gather all the wood and cut it into sizes more appropriate to burn in our fireplace each fall and winter.
I cannot count the number of times I smashed and split logs I named in my mind; Teachers who pissed me off, unreasonable schoolmates, friends and even family members. I hacked at the deadwood until the shortened sun went gray and I became too exhausted to lift my ax.
In a sense, I grew strong during the wintertime. In another, I was weaker.
When my family moved away, I started playing basketball and made the school team. I prided myself on playing tough, physical defense, mostly because I lacked — or thought so at the time, anyway — the skill set to be a powerful scoring threat. Offseason training and conditioning during practice gave me the winter exhaustion I left behind when I put down my ax.
As time went on and coaches told me I wasn't good enough to play anymore, I took to running. This was about the time I noticed the pattern.
Any number of things can trigger my nuclear winter. Two or three years it was a girl, twice it was a companion on my mission I didn't get along with, more than a few times it was brought by failures of some kind or another, whether academic or athletic.
The thing is, I don't like feeling so black inside. I hate when my stomach ties itself into a knot of snakes. I don't like wanting to break down and cry in front of my friends and professors. I can't stand smiling through my teeth while my eyes sink into down into my cheeks to hide.
I just want it all to go away.
It's a feeling I can't describe very well. I feel discouraged and my desire to do my favorite things is diminished. Small failures lead to catastrophic spirals that make it so I don't even want to try anymore, even in the areas I normally excel at. My dreams start to reflect my anxiety, and I'll find myself beating nocturnal demons like Ivan Drago tried to do to Rocky Balboa in Christmas day.
My schoolwork suffers, I sleep either too much or too little, and my relationships with friends and family becomes strained as my patience and will to mask my secrets fails me. I avoid those I look up to so I can keep my feelings hidden because I know they'll see right though me and try to help — which is kind, but unwelcome because it would make me face my problems.
When I was younger, I didn't notice any patterns of negative attitude or behavior. Maybe that's because I had ways of coping with it. Kind of.
When I lived in West Jordan, my family's property had several trees in the back yard. They all had to be trimmed and sometimes hewn down. My responsibility was to gather all the wood and cut it into sizes more appropriate to burn in our fireplace each fall and winter.
I cannot count the number of times I smashed and split logs I named in my mind; Teachers who pissed me off, unreasonable schoolmates, friends and even family members. I hacked at the deadwood until the shortened sun went gray and I became too exhausted to lift my ax.
In a sense, I grew strong during the wintertime. In another, I was weaker.
When my family moved away, I started playing basketball and made the school team. I prided myself on playing tough, physical defense, mostly because I lacked — or thought so at the time, anyway — the skill set to be a powerful scoring threat. Offseason training and conditioning during practice gave me the winter exhaustion I left behind when I put down my ax.
As time went on and coaches told me I wasn't good enough to play anymore, I took to running. This was about the time I noticed the pattern.
Any number of things can trigger my nuclear winter. Two or three years it was a girl, twice it was a companion on my mission I didn't get along with, more than a few times it was brought by failures of some kind or another, whether academic or athletic.
The thing is, I don't like feeling so black inside. I hate when my stomach ties itself into a knot of snakes. I don't like wanting to break down and cry in front of my friends and professors. I can't stand smiling through my teeth while my eyes sink into down into my cheeks to hide.
I just want it all to go away.
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