SADS AND CLOTHES

Every winter I suffer from SADS (seasonal affected depression syndrome), but this winter has been worse than usual. I think I finally figured out why: this is the first time in many years that I haven’t had to be somewhere every day or at least several times a week. Even last year after I retired, I tutored several days a week, but this year I’ve been as free as a bird. As a result, SADS hit me harder than usual.

I finally began to come out of the worst of it on the trip to New Mexico. The weather out there, especially in south NM was bright and sunny and I just soaked it up. As I said, I began to climb out of the pit.

So now every sunny day or even just a warm day, I try to sit outside for 30 minutes or so to try to get the endorphins that the sun apparently gives me built back up in my brain. I feel much better as a result.

I felt so good in fact that I switched my closets around again – swapped winter clothes out for summer ones and once again I have come up with a huge pile of clothes that I haven’t worn in a year that I need to give away. I think I must be wearing the same old clothes over and over and just forgetting about most of the others.

Or I’m just buying too many and can’t possibly wear them all. This need to have lots of clothes dates back to my childhood. Because I was the youngest, many of the clothes I had were hand-me-downs, and had that worn look about them. Also, people just didn’t have the amount of clothes we have now. But the desire for me to have lots of them started early.

That’s one reason I learned to sew. Mother encouraged us to do this and as soon as I was in high school, I began making many of my skirts and dresses. Thus, I could build up my wardrobe without having to spend lots of money.

You would think that with three girls in the family, we would have been able to borrow each other’s clothes. And BJ and MA did just that; however, they wouldn’t let me in on this unless I signed my life away. Now why would they be so stingy? Actually, they had a good reason because I tended to step out of my clothes each day and leave them on the floor when I undressed. No matter whose it was. You can understand why they cut me out of the deal unless I swore a blood oath to be careful with whatever I borrowed.

I still tend to not hang up my clothes at night, and instead put it on one of the two chairs in the bedroom. But I’m getting better, even in my old age I am learning the old adage: “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

At least I don’t throw them on the floor anymore.