Speculating on Winter Blues.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I find winter all but intolerable. It isn’t just the obvious dislike of being cold, it’s also the strength and quality of the light. Even when the sun shines and the air is mild, the daylight has a weak, sickly texture to it and the shadows are disturbingly long. And when the wind begins to moan as well, the whole fills me with a sense of desolation. Oh what it is to be an HSP.

I’ve often wondered why winter is such a trial to me. There are those who tell me that it’s simply the lack of vitamin D, but I wonder whether the reason might lie deeper. I was born on the verge of winter at the end of November, and so my emergence from the warm stillness of the womb dropped me straight into the dark, damp, dispiriting outside world of a typical British winter. It was probably a shock to the system.

On the other hand, it might be connected with a recurring childhood dream which I’ve also related on this blog, and which I feel sure stemmed from a pre-natal memory of not wanting to be born. Maybe I knew it was winter outside and didn’t want to give up my warm and cosy environment. But how would I know what winter would be like if I hadn’t been born yet?

Cue another maybe. Maybe the high level of credence I attach to the concept of metempsychosis is not so fanciful after all. Maybe I’d been here before and knew what to expect.