Beating The Winter Blues

This is the first time in a decade I am experiencing winter. Cue the world’s smallest violin. Normally, I am working in Palm Beach. To adjust to this cold weather, I have found one thing to be true — you need socks. I don’t like socks.

And, goodness knows, a pair of socks has a harder time staying together than I have in many of my relationships. One day I may just find an old boyfriend in my dryer lint trap. Why are they so afraid of being committed to their other half? The dress sock can’t wait to cling to the sporty sock. Other times they simply pull a Greta Garbo, “I want to be alone,” and hide at the bottom of the laundry bin. And often, they are clearly abducted by aliens, because I have no idea where they have gone. It is the sock equivalent of going out to get ice cream and never coming back.

So, despite couples counseling for my socks, what else am I going to do to avoid the winter blues? I have discovered that both the corgis surfing and putting baby kangaroos to bed YouTube videos are extremely entertaining, but not quite the intellectual equivalent of “Anna Karenina.” Yet clearly, this is no time for Tolstoy or train tracks.

Supposedly, light therapy is very helpful. But when I turn the lights up really bright and catch my winter pale face in the mirror, I frighten myself and think something needs to be done. So that leads to the suggestion to wash your face with beer. Supposedly the B vitamins, hops, and yeast dissolve dead cells and boost skin’s luminosity. So now I am standing at the sink, in the bright light, slurping up the beer about to drip down my chin but thinking hell, at least this is a better home remedy than using Preparation H to get rid of under-eye bags.

Another pundit says, to avoid the winter blues, plan a vacation to somewhere warm. Okay so this means two things — winter and bikini. Terrifying. I am immediately regretting the caloric beer facial and bright mood-enhancing-light shed on my muffin top. I decide to move down the suggestion list and come across: Have a good laugh by approaching a group of strangers talking and casually poke your head in to say, “So are we gonna kill him or what?” Uh yeah, time to reconsider the warm vacation, and I wonder exactly how much Preparation H it would take to reduce the puffiness of my belly. This is a low moment.

A creative person says to have some winter fun why not take Kool-Aid, and when it snows, write messages with it in your front yard. I am not sure if I use Kool-Aid to write “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid” in the yard if anyone will get the joke. But it’s better than putting up a lost dog poster with a cat’s picture as someone else suggested for public humor.

My solace comes from the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly who had the perfect response to bad weather. “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing, so get yourself a sexy raincoat and live a little.”

Grand advice. I am going to get myself that sexy winter coat and a sexy, it’s-too-expensive-to-get-divorced, pair of socks and just brave this winter. Enough with the unfortunate body parts and testing the neighbor’s sense of irony. The lesson is sometimes it’s not about outside but the inside that counts.

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