Sometimes I Swear I’m Part Plant

I’ve been feeling very…trapped? lately. I can’t really call this Seasonal Affective Disorder

Catbug hangs out with my green plants. I’d put a fairy out, but they are packed away in a box that’s hard to get to.

yet because I’m not depressed (I’ll get that way around January or February though). But my heart is aching because it’s so cold and there is a lack of green things and the days are so short. I keep thinking about things in the warmer months–the Gay Pride Parade, Pagan Pride Day, random adventures in a park–and how free I felt/feel then. And then I look outside and see snow flurries outside my window, and remember the bite of the wind when I walk to my car, and think about how even when I wear my warmest coat with my cute little hat and gloves I’m still never warm enough out there. And how when I wear that coat and those mittens I feel so bundled up that it’s hard to move, it feels restrictive and almost like I’m in a straight jacket.

Turns out trapped was an accurate word at the beginning of that paragraph.

Sometimes I feel like it is expected of me, as a Pagan, to understand why Winter is necessary. Sometimes I feel like, as a Pagan, I’m obligated to love and appreciate the colder months. But the truth is, I don’t. I never in my life have. I feel like I wilt every Winter. Normally these feelings don’t come around until January–which is ironic because at that point the days are already growing longer. But for some reason, this year, they have hit a week before the Winter Solstice. It’s making me look forward to Yule in a way I never have before.

To combat this I’m doing everything I can to surround myself with beautiful, green things, and things that remind me of warmer months in general. My desk is located right next to the kitchen counter, so on the edge I’ve placed my succulents and bamboo to create a small area of green. (I also have some dried pineapple there because it’s one of my favorite snacks~) It brings me such happiness and peace right now. For music I have some Relaxing Nature Sounds playing. The birds in this soothe me like nothing else. (I never realize how much birdsong means to me until I first hear them in Spring…or in a situation like this.) My phone’s background is green-leafed trees. Around my desk I’m going to hang some pictures of flowers and faeries and other things that remind me of warm weather.

Sometimes I think Luna feels this way, too. These past few days she’s been acting up and getting into things she’s not supposed to. Not just the Yule tree (as all kittens do), but up on surfaces she knows she’s not supposed to be on. She’s been trying to play with things that she knows are Not For Panthers (what I tell her when she’s not meant to play with something). It’s like she herself is stir crazy and not liking this weather.

My heart is aching, yearning for days when I can go outside and explore. For days when I can work with the windows wide open and feel the warm Summer breeze blow through the apartment. For days when I can go set up shop in a park and hang out there without my butt going numb from the cold ground. I can’t even articulate how much I need these things…