I never realised before that I suffer from SAD—seasonal affective disorder. This is when the winter, the cold and dark, makes you feel depressed. And in a way I’m not sure that I do. It’s more the other way around—it’s more that sunshine and heat makes me ridiculously, irrationally happy.
There’s a mini-heatwave going on in London at the moment. Today the temperature hit the mid-seventies. Tomorrow it is forecast to go even higher. The sun is out, the air is clear, the skies are bright, girls are dressing in skimpier clothes, and everyone seems to be in a good mood.
Earlier on I was walking through a part of Camden that I’d never visited before, just beaming to myself. This woman passing by noticed, smiled and we said hello. Now, while London is not the steadfastly unfriendly place that people make out, it is certain that little bit of bonhomie wouldn’t have taken place in icy January.
There is something about the sun that sends me just a little bit crazy. I am suddenly filled with enormous, reckless, energy. I am far more likely to do something stupid, like book a last minute ticket to Ibiza or Vegas. To hell with the money! You can’t spend it when you’re dead! My ability to control my finances goes out of the window, so in thrall am I become to my heightened mood.
It is hard for me to determine whether this is the narcotic effect of the sun elevating my state above its natural baseline, or if my mood is below par during the winter and the sun merely acts as a simple corrective. Perhaps it’s a little bit of both. Regardless, I am certainly much happier being alive on this planet as a human in my body being when it is hot.
Perhaps this is why I love Ibiza so much. I have a strangely split personality in that on the one hand I live in Suede album in the darkened council estate bedrooms of London or Berlin, but on the other it is clear that what I actually crave is the bright, outdoor life.
(Ibiza will no doubt be on my travel list this summer—I am still working through possibilities for my itinerary right now.)
Perhaps, though, there is something to be learned from this. If my mood—and therefore energy and motivation—are really so amplified by the sun, then maybe I should do what others do and chase it throughout the year. That might mean a couple of months in Thailand in January and February, for example.
Since I am now theoretically a digital nomad, perhaps that lifestyle would work better for me. My cleaving to London is a natural consequence of my love for this city, plus my addictive personality, which makes me pathetically nostalgic for people, places and things. But life shows us the way, if we choose to take heed of our senses, and perhaps it’s indicating a new way for me.
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