Let's Talk About Summertime Sadness

I’m taking a little break from talking about

 theater to talk about a new topic everybody’s

 obsessed with--

Seasonal Depression

For a long time, I thought I was the only

 one who got it in the summer, but after 

posting a few sad tweets about it, a couple

 of people reached out, and I chose one of

 them to go anonymous, and talk about it.

Here’s the interview:

ME:  So I did some research--

THEM:  You Googled.

ME:  I Googled, and it turns out--being 

sad in the summer isn’t actually all that

 uncommon.

THEM:  Yes, Kevin, there’s an entire Lana 

Del Rey song about it.

ME:  Except the reasons I think it affects me

 aren’t what they list on a lot of the websites I found.

THEM:  What are the reasons?

ME:  I sort of associate summer with, like, me 

being stuck in place?  Because it always feels

 like ‘Oh, look at all these people graduating’

 and then I have to reflect on what I’ve done

 with my life.  Does that happen to you?

THEM:  Yeah, I dread seeing those graduation

 photos in the newspaper.

ME:  But the funny thing is, even when I was

 the one graduating, I was depressed.

THEM:  So this has always been a regular 

thing for you?

ME:  I’m definitely a creature of habit, and 

summer is all about--disrupting habits.  

That’s got to be part of it.

THEM:  Did you like going to back to school

 when you were a kid?

ME:  I LOVED going back to school, which

 is weird, because I didn’t really like school 

all that much.

THEM:  Same for me.

ME:  How was your Memorial Day?

THEM:  It was awful.

ME:  It’s the worst.

THEM:  There’s so much pressure to do

stuff that I don’t want to do.

ME:  Me too!  I hate barbecues, I hate the 

beach, I loathe fireworks--

THEM:  Just being outside.  Hate it.

ME:  But I also hate feeling left out.

THEM:  So it’s that thing where--

ME:  Where you want to be where everyone

 else is but you don’t want to be doing what

 they’re doing.

THEM:  Yup.

ME:  It’s like some twisted version of FOMO.

THEM:  Which means you like the winter?

ME:  LOVE the winter.  Love Christmas. I love

 what everybody else dreads.

THEM:  See, I wouldn’t say I love them.  It’s

 like--every season has its own specific 

form of anxiety.

ME:  That’s probably true of me too.  But I am

 legitimately at my most happy when I’m trapped

 inside during a blizzard.

THEM:  Why is that?

ME:  Because there’s no pressure to do 

anything.

THEM:  Yeah.

ME:  It’s like--Oh good, everybody’s trapped

 in their houses.  I’m not missing anything.

THEM:  But, okay, so--this Memorial Day was

 beautiful, and I had talked myself up--or, I--I

 had talked myself into, um, accepting any

 invitations or whatever--

ME:  And nobody invited you to do anything.

THEM:  Nobody.

ME:  Same here.  I know, like, eight people

 with yards and pools and nobody did anything.

THEM:  Or they hate you and just didn’t invite you.

ME:  Honestly?  Probably.

THEM:  No, I was checking social media to 

make sure that wasn’t happening, and 

everybody was--I don’t know.  You know if the

 weather had been bad, people would have

 complained, but the weather was great and 

nobody took advantage of it.

ME:  People are just tired.

THEM:  I know I’m tired.

ME:  I tell myself that if I had a house with a yard

 or a pool or whatever I’d invite people over but--

THEM:  No, you wouldn’t.

ME:  I probably wouldn’t.

THEM:  This was extra-bad for me, because I

 think--sometimes where my head is at--I like

 knowing there’s something going on, and that

 I can go to it, that I’m invited, and then just--not

 going?  Somehow that feels better?

ME:  Because you feel like you could be 

included if you wanted to be.

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  I kept trying to think of alternative things I 

can do when the weather is nice, but I don’t 

want to engage with it.

THEM:  I envy those people who stay in and 

don’t care.

ME:  I do too.

THEM:  They might secretly care, but they act

 like they don’t.  It’s ninety degrees out and 

they’re staying in watching movies with the 

air on, and they seem perfectly content.

ME:  It’s funny, because when I was younger, 

my mom used to have to drag me outside in 

the summer, and I used to say, ‘When I get 

older I’m going to stay home in the summer

 and not care’ and now I care so much.

THEM:  And why do we care?

ME:  It’s all pressure.  It’s just this pressure. 

 It exists around every holiday now.  Every

 holiday has its own anxiety--just like the 

seasons.  Like what you were talking about.

THEM:  People want to know how you celebrated.

ME:  I think two years ago it rained on Fourth 

of July and it felt like a reprieve.

THEM:  I remember that.  I was so happy.

ME:  I was ecstatic.

THEM:  You’re right.  It’s easier in the winter. 

 It’s dark at three o’clock and freezing, and 

you’re like, ‘Might as well go home and not 

leave my house for seventeen hours.’

ME:  And not feel bad about it.

THEM:  And not feel bad about it.

ME:  I’m counting the days until next February.

THEM:  What did the websites do to counteract

 the sadness?

ME:  Uh--get help?  Like a therapist.

THEM:  Check.

ME:  (Laughs.)  Check, check.

THEM:  Do you talk to your therapist about it?

ME:  Yeah, we started to, and she says--Well, 

it’s a whole thing.  Because it’s connected to

 so many different--it’s weird how much you

 can associate with something like weather.

THEM:  My therapist laughed when I told her

 I hate being woken up by natural light.

ME:  I hate that too.

THEM:  I got those blackout curtains.

ME:  Good for you.

THEM:  I just want to live in the dark.

ME:  I’d be so much happier if I was a vampire.

THEM:  You’d have to sleep in dirt.

ME:  I’ve slept in worse.

THEM:  (Laughs.)  Are you nervous about

 Fourth of July this year?

ME:  It’s my least favorite day of the year.

THEM:  Maybe it’ll rain again.

ME:  I’m not going to get that lucky.

THEM:  And we barely got a winter.

ME:  We got, like, what?  One snowstorm?

THEM:  We should move to Alaska.

ME:  Let’s do it.  I’m down.

THEM:  But all the ice is melting, right?

ME:  Where is the ice not melting?  I should

 look that up.

THEM:  You do that.

ME:  I feel like we should have offered advice

 or support or something--

THEM:  We are.  We’re letting weirdos like 

us know they’re not alone.

ME:  That’s the least amount of support we

 can possibly give.

THEM:  Listen, we’re not doctors.  Tell them

 to see a doctor like the website says.

ME:  That’s a good idea.

THEM:  Even though we’re seeing doctors and--

ME:  Where did you get your blackout curtains?

Them suffers from summertime sadness, 
like the Lana Del Rey song.