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On Monday, James arrived at Courtland’s preschool just before 5pm, and was greeted by a flood of tears and distress. The teachers informed him that she had begun sobbing about 15 minutes before his arrival, but they hadn’t figured out the cause of her dismay. She buried her face in James’ shoulder and said, “Daddy, it was getting lighter and lighter and nobody was coming.”

You see, Courtland confuses light and dark, so what she was trying to convey is that as the day slipped into darkness, she feared that we’d abandoned her at the school for the evening. It would seem that even preschoolers understand the awfulness that is daylight savings.

Last night, I sat James down and we had our yearly discussion about my darkening mood. Like clockwork, I feel my motivation and spirit going down the toilet. It’s the post-Homecoming, pre-Thanksgiving, Daylight Savings-inspired funk that hits me like a ton of bricks every November. I am now able to speak very matter-of-factly about this depressive period, acknowledging its arrival, and doing my best to combat the pull to darkness and protect my family from its backlash. I sleep. I knit. I eat leafy greens. I bask in my sunlamp. I exercise. I schedule activities and socialization and I fight the urge to hide under covers and skip these scheduled respites. James brings me coffee in bed, eases me to wakefulness with a back rub and words of encouragement. He doesn’t fight the way I linger under flannel or shirk some of my usual parental responsibilities. After work, the kids willingly crawl under covers with me, and snuggle, and brush my hair, and spend time with their mama in the only way I’m able during this rough few weeks of transition.

I joked with James yesterday that I bet I could dive back into the blog and find a post from the first two weeks of November every year since we’ve returned to New England speaking to this period of sadness. And lo, there are indeed four years worth of reflections catalogued in the archives. They serve as important reminders that however pathetic I may feel, it’s not forever. I can and will get past this. And in the meantime, I have cheerleaders on my side to help move me through it.

To anyone that may feel this slump in spirit during these darker days, remember that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. We can do it.

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2013: This time of year is really hard on me (and many others, I’d imagine). I have S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and these short, dark days hit me hard every year. I’m a beast to live with despite my best efforts at exercise, time under the sun lamp, daily Vitamin D, plenty of sleep and healthy eating. I still just feel unhappy. This season has been particularly difficult with Ursa gone. James is so patient and understanding and always finds ways to put a smile on my face as I move through the 2-3 weeks of adjustment and sadness and come out the other side (today’s I HEART U pancakes as a perfect example).

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2012: Yesterday, I took a time out from my daily life, drove down to Lenox, and sat in the corner of a coffee shop knitting for three solid hours. While that may sound hellish to some of you, it was more therapeutic than any amount of time under my sunlamp, or with a shrink, or on Prozac. I needed a day, all to myself. A day with no email. No dependents. No plans. No nothing. And it was exactly as healing and relaxing as I’d hoped. It’s been a hellish fall. People in my life have been coping with so much loss and hurt and struggle. And I’ve had my own hiccups here and there. And I’ve been left feeling exhausted. Burned out. Stretched too thin. And failing on all fronts. I needed a day to make peace with that. So I basked in that stream of sunlight falling on my knitting needles and steaming cup of coffee, and thought, about nothing and everything. I recharged.

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2011: Feelings. I’ve got ‘em. In a maudlin and mellow dramatic way.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered, this is fairly standard for moi.

It’s the darker days.

It’s the baby who has absolutely no semblance of a schedule so James and I are like the walking dead because we can’t figure out how to get the kid to sleep the hours of the average working human. C’mon 3 month old! Get with the daily grind!

It’s the holiday season, which in and of itself wields enough nostalgia-provoking power to drown my weepies in a cup of egg nog.

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2010: He can instantly sense when I start to falter and most importantly, knows how to call me out on my shit in way that won’t result in me hurling a jar of pickles through the kitchen and reenacting scenes from The Exorcist. He ensures that I make it to the gym for a good ol’dose of endorphins (even if it requires physical force to get me in spandex – a tricky feat indeed), draws baths so that I can escape in the quiet of the tub, orders and installs sun lamps, gets me to laugh even when I am being a total bear and I’m spitting fire and hurling insults and refusing to cooperate.