My Condition

I don't know if everyone has the same problem. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just too sensitive. But I am certain that I have a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Though undiagnosed, I sometimes allow the weather to affect my mood to a ridiculous extent. It's not like every time it's rainy, I'm sad-- or every time it's sunny, I'm happy. Luckily, I do not suffer from that level of psychosis. However, bad weather doesn't help anything in terms of my ability to cope with life. And good weather sometimes does.

I'm a pretty future obsessed person, and something I love to think about is where I will live, as in "settle". I was recently hanging out with my super cool sister-in-law and cousin-in-law, and I posed this question of them. I said, 'if you could make it the perfect situation, like have the right job and the right friends and family around, where would you live if you could live anywhere?' Cuz then asked me, 'could I change the weather?' I said, 'no'. She protested, then sighed, then said, 'I'd still pick the twin cities.'

Though weather is one of the reasons my dream location is my dream location, I can relate to Cuz's dilemma. Weather so simultaneously affects us yet is irrelvant to us. Barring locations that have totally extreme weather patterns, it seems like we would be willing to live places that didn't have perfect weather if we really just liked the character of the state or city. Then again, a LOT of people want to live in San Diego-- you don't hear that very often about Buffalo.

Also, I want to point out that "bad" weather doesn't always translate to a bad mood-- sometimes it has the exact opposite effect. I remember that when I was in elementary school, whenever it was rainy and gloomy out, the flourescent lights seemed to glow differently. For some reason, I loved it and I loved the way my school felt those days. It was oddly comforting. We couldn't go out for recess and we'd sit on the gym floor and watch a video instead (The Princess Bride sticks out in my memory). I may have been in school and everything else about the day was the same as always, but I felt like I was home in front of the TV in my sweatpants somehow.

I'm curious- does anyone else out there know what I'm talking about-- the rainy day interior of school being pleasant? Let me know!