Just Like Groundhog Day

"Somebody asked me today, 'Phil, if you could be anywhere in the world, where would you like to be?'  And I said to him, 'Probably right here - Elko, Nevada, our nation's high at 79 today.'"  - Opening lines of 'Groundhog Day'

In the classic Harold Ramis film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a sarcastic, egotistical weather man who gets stuck in Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania reliving February 2nd - Groundhog Day - over and over.


Today, the sky is the same dull shade of pigeon-gray it has been every day, all winter, with very few exceptions.  Days like this, I empathize with Phil.  Late in the movie, when he's doing his (I'm guessing, here) four hundredth broadcast in a row at the site where Phil the Groundhog is pulled from his hutch to determine the exact end of winter, he says, "You want a prediction, you're asking the wrong Phil.  I'll give you a winter prediction.  It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be gray, and it's going to last you the rest of your life."


Whether you call it cabin fever, 'house-itosis' (as my Grandma did), or Seasonal Affective Disorder, this weather wears on me.  I am alternately grumpy, restless, and lethargic, when not outright depressed.  I'm short-tempered with my friends.  I sabotage my long-term relationships; the fact that nearly all of them have ended in the winter is no coincidence.  This is exacerbated, in the midst of my second winter back in Illinois, by the knowledge that I don't suffer to this extent when I live in sunnier climates.


Just after New Year's this year I was driving downstate after visiting my best friend in Chicago.  I'd been fighting off the worst of the annual grouchiness and depression for a couple weeks.  I was also working really hard to keep my dark, evil side from ruining a relationship I'm getting a second chance at after twenty years.  


In one of those epiphany moments that often come to me while I'm driving, a realization struck:  These struggles I go through are unpleasant, but they're not necessarily a bad thing.  In the same way the trees get stripped bare of their leaves so that new growth can occur, I go through a phase in the winter whereby the illusions I'm able to maintain the rest of the year fall away.  This, in turn, forces me to come up with creative solutions in order to preserve my sanity.  It's through this process that I figured out how to mitigate the restlessness by taking short trips to sunny places when I can, learned ways to manage the depression without the use of pharmaceuticals, and fight off the lethargy with a combination of yoga, meditation, and regular walks about town with my dog.


When all else fails, I lay off the decaf and turn to regular coffee, in espresso form.  Caffeine makes me happy.


Still, to rephrase the quote above, If somebody were to ask me today, "Debbie, if you could be anywhere in the world, where would you like to be?"  I'd have to say to him, "Probably in Yuma, Arizona**, where it was 87 degrees today, and which boasts our nation's highest average sunny days per year, at around 328.5*."




* Number of days are extrapolated from the percentages listed here:  www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/pctposrank.txt  
** Cool facts about Yuma:  www.visityuma.com/history.html