November 5: Annual Melancholy, Feeling Blue, Muffler Problems

...On the first day of January, in fact, in his annual melancholy soul-searching, he had sat on the roof of his apartment building, just outside the window, and gloomily contemplated his life and work as he stared at the heavy fog that made streetlights look like luminous balloons.  He walked around the reservoir in the damp and wondered if he ought to leave town suddenly, without telling anyone where he was headed...

E. B. White suffers from an "annual melancholy" at the beginning of January.  That's what author Michael Sims calls it.  The clinical name for this condition would be seasonal affective disorder, I believe.  The days are short, cold, and gray.  The nights are long, cold, and black.  A person with an already sensitive nature like White didn't stand a chance. 

I think most writers, like E. B. White, suffer from melancholy in one shape or form.  When I was younger, I used to go through what I called "blue periods."  Times when I would stay in my room in the dark, listen to Billy Joel songs, and watch movies like Stand by Me.  Of course, now I know that I was probably clinically depressed.  Back then, I just knew that I was tired and sad.  Sometimes for a couple of weeks at a time.

Those blue periods come upon me less and less these days.  I don't have time to sit in the dark for hours at a time.  I have a family and jobs and students.  Responsibilities.  I get tired and upset.  Some days, I just want to stay in bed and pull the blankets over my head.  But I don't.  I get up, go to work, go to the university, correct tests, write blog posts.  Pretend that everything is perfect.

At the moment, I find myself teetering on the edge of a blue period.  Last night, my wife told me that the muffler on her car is bad.  It needs to be fixed.  Soon.  I don't know where we're going to get the money.  We just applied for a credit card from a local credit union in order to pay for my daughter's braces.  We were approved for a five thousand dollar credit limit.  I have been in debt before.  Almost ten grand on a Discover Card.  It took me three years to crawl out from underneath that.  I think I'm headed in that direction again.

So, I'm a little down.  Actually, I'm a lot down.  It doesn't help that it's November and winter is on its way.  I drive to work before sunrise and drive home after sunset.  My days are long.  I work all the time.  And I still can't pay my bills.

Saint Marty is one brake job away from foreclosure.  Again.

Even Picasso got a little blue