What is it about this time of year?

Everyone at work is in the worst mood... cranky, cranky, cranky. Lots of pointless nastiness around the store these days. Doesn't help that everything and anything seems to make me cry... everything just seems so much harder... it feels like I can't do anything right. It's a feeling that comes around every fall and stays with me 'til Spring. I think the technical term is SAD.

I look hard for ways to break out of the SAD cycle before it sucks me in.

One way to shift an over-hanging black mood works really well... doing unexpected, un-asked, kind things for other people. Buying coffee, picking up some chocolates on my break, driving a co-worker to the opposite end of the city to save her a long bus trip because I can see she is white as a sheet and plainly just as exhausted as I am. Giving people presents for no particular reason 'cept I like them. Makes me feel better and usually perks them up too. It can make a rotten work day suddenly bearable again. Just because I'm sad doesn't mean I don't have it in me to make someone else happier.

I'm feeling things especially sharply this year. When you loose someone, it brings back every other loss you've ever suffered. I miss my friend so much... loosing her makes me miss my Mom... my Aunt Betty... being married... being young... etc. etc. oh-woe-is-me... enough.

Obviously it's high time to get back on my seasonal meds.

If, like me, you get a little blue this time of year... do something for someone else. See how that makes you feel.