Winter Blues
By Aoife Broad
This summer, a friend gave me a copy of Jenny Slate’s Little Weirds. It’s a step into her brain that’s full to bursting with love, heartbreak, and honestly – just being alive. To see the world through Jenny’s eyes, as she writes it, is to see the world for the first time, shining with strangeness and the promise of new possibilities.
Her words remind you that we’re somehow alive on this big ancient green and blue ball that does circles around an even bigger (orange) ball that’s made of up lights and science-y gasses (not stinky ones). She’s open that some pretty stink things happen on this sphere, yeah, but it’s also a place of wild joy, where we can start living as soon as we are born, and that we can be born at any time.
This book is impossible to categorize. It’s so playful, so heart-breaking, and yeah – as cringe as this is – so real. You can check out Little Weirds here.
That book came along with my buddy Matt and me on a month-long tramping and mountaineering trip, stuffed safely into the bottom of my Fjallraven 35L, only to be pulled out a couple of times while we sheltered from the elements under rock bivvies, or in our protein-fart smelling tent.
Over the weeks, we explored swampy valleys and scree-scaped mountainsides. We traversed snowfields and glaciers. We slept in some beautiful places, and some really weird ones too. We met strange and utterly wonderful people, from the couple dropping 10kg of peanut butter across the Beans Burn, to the crazy old man swimming nude in the sub-Antarctic waters of the Catlins at 7 am on a Monday.
The whole time Matt and I walked, climbed, and refused to shower on principle – I thought of that book; the way it talks about life with such enthusiasm and encourages its reader to really just take life by the balls.
It was easy to ride the happy endorphins that summer.
At the end of our month in the hills, we got a couple more silly little tattoos and left Queenstown that evening. We continued down the meandering road to Dunedin, passing through fruit-laden Cromwell and Ashburton, and the simple, yet beautiful landscapes that come along with them. The drive back is kind of like a reverse Narnia, where things get less and less exciting the further you progress. For the first time in a month, we were silent. No wisecracks. No jokes about who forgot their sleeping bag, or who hadn’t changed their socks in a week.
I left Matt in Dunedin later that night and continued on to Christchurch. The road, and its 7-hour journey, were quiet.
And isolating.
And suddenly...I felt very much alone.
Little Weirds kept me company that night, while I tried to sleep under a streetlight beam, trapped in the backseat. Now crumpled, and sticky, with crumbs and God knows what strung throughout its pages - the book was worn. I was beginning to relate.
It’s been a couple of months since then. Now, I sit in the high-rise of an office building in New Zealand’s capital overlooking the first days of winter. I think of the days when we had no other objective than to make it to the end of a pass or set up a high camp. Days now are spent pouring over spreadsheets and emailing strangers.
In my building, the windows are tinted grey, and on rainy days the skies turn a crackling black – a little like the fog overhanging the manor on the hill in Edward Scissorhands.
To tell you the truth; I’ve been struggling. It’s been like this all autumn, and now winter. Struggling with basic, silly things. Things like getting out of bed in the morning, making sure I’m dressed, responding to friends’ texts and calls. I’ve been anxious all the time.
Where summer brought out my best, the cold has sapped it completely.
These feelings have arisen annually, practically year on year. But with very little explanation, and certainly no understanding on my part.
One evening last month, I drove along the coast with a friend. We talked about our lives as we watched the lights refract against the water below, and shared stories of what’s happened, what’s happening, and what we hope the future holds. She talked so brightly about her hopes for the future. What she and her partner are up to - and all of the adventures she’s planning.
I was excited for her. But I couldn't see anything in my own future. She mentioned these feelings might be worth talking to someone about. A nuanced code for “go see a doctor”.
Initially, I was hurt – I felt judged and uncomfortable with being seen by her. Actually – with sharing itself.
I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago to keep her happy, and after a few visits, was diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It’s a type of depression that comes and goes with the seasons. You can read more about SAD here.
There’s something about a diagnosis that leaves you feeling quite vulnerable. A little label that pinpoints ‘there’s something wrong with you.’ And it’s weird to sit with. It’s even weirder to share. My family has a history of mental health issues, and it’s definitely taboo to talk about.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth talking about.
Even though I’m uncomfortable with my new diagnosis, I was reminded of what Jenny Slate writes about taking all of life’s emotions as they come at you. Although things are tough right now, it’s better to feel something than nothing at all.
So, while the sky might not be literally clearing from my office window (we’ve another three months of winter here in New Zealand) the clouds are beginning to show a silver lining. I might just be looking forward to what’s next.
Aoife Broad is a crappy vegetarian and artist based in Wellington, NZ. Follow her on Instagram @aoifebroad.
