Less gloom please

It is that time of year with nights stretching out, days receding fast and the mercury falling when my thoughts turn more and more to what it must be like to live somewhere else. I confess I’ve not checked on the lighting up times in the South of France but with a ready supply of olives, wine and pastis I think I could get by a bit better than I do back here in Scotland.

The winter brings not just a chill that freezes the very marrow in my bones and makes my joints crack, but a certain gloom in my normally cheerful disposition. It is around this time of year that when I look out of the window in the late afternoon I say to myself, “Oh God, another month before the days start drawing out again”.

But it is January that brings me my deepest depression each year. For despite knowing that the days are slowly, surely drawing out by a full two minutes each day, January for some reason appears to me to be the darkest month of the year. It might be due to having had an extended break over the festive period, though you might think that would enhance my mood making me more capable of getting through the month; or it may be down to the fact that the return to work in January leaves me with the gaping chasm of a whole year stretching out in front – stuck in the same job and, worse, with no summer holiday booked.

Or – most likely – it might just be a pathetic, over-indulgent, self-pitying state of mind that I should shake off and shelf; for what can be more optimistic than a New Year. All the stresses and strains of the old year are behind you now. That gaping chasm of the New Year ahead is a blank canvas of opportunity. It is a foundation for personal and professional growth and maybe I should begin to recognise it for its potential, instead of complaining about just how dark it seems and wishing my life away for longer days and a milder climate.

Maybe I’ll take on the New Year with a new attitude this time round and see if it makes any difference. Maybe I’ll spend the holidays thinking long and hard about where I want to be and what I want to do during 2009, and perhaps when I sit down at my desk in early January it will be with a smile on my face because I will know that something great, and in my control, is just around the corner.

Maybe I’ll get to France – even if it’s just for a fortnight in July.