SAD

Every year, I dread fall because I know what is around the corner: Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'm trying to keep my head above water.

In an age where we are isolated but still technologically connected, this is important. It’s okay to be alone. It’s okay to be unoccupied.

It's ok to be sad and happy at the same time. I think that’s the beauty of life — how unpredictable it is and how adaptable we are as humans.

Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder is actually a thing, and so here are just a few ways we’re striving for something approaching enjoyment during the hot, humid, bug-y months of late June, July, and August.

I don’t want to spend another summer waiting for winter. It took years to realize this, and even more years to act on it. This is the work of healing that no one mentions: you have to find the wounds you didn’t know you had.

You don’t need to be diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder to experience the negative effects of the colder, darker days. Every year, it’s like we’re all shocked about just how early it can get dark, wondering where the sun went as if we’ve never gone through winter before. To ease into this time of year and not get wiped out by the crueler side of Mother Nature, here are a few tactics to try.

March is always an awful month for me. In Cape Town — my home town — March marks the beginning of autumn. Summer’s exhilarating heat comes to a sobering end. Sweltering afternoons and nights spent around the fire ominously disappear, soon to be replaced by gusts of winds and air so cold it literally hurts your face.