Why do I hate winter? Let me count the ways.

I mentioned in my last post that the holidays were the most depressing time of the year, but that’s nothing compared to the winter.

Why do I hate winter? Let me count the ways…

It’s cold. Even here in the South, it gets cold in the winter. While the temperatures don’t drop too far below freezing, it’s still cold enough to be unpleasant. Worst of all: there’s no snow, so the cold isn’t even doing anything of value. It just makes me want to stay inside and crawl under a bunch of blankets with a cup of tea and a good book. Not a bad way to spend a cold day, but I would at least appreciate the option of going outside without freezing to death.

Sunlight is precious and less abundant than during the summer months. It might be a big ball of fire in the sky, but I’m quite a fan of sunlight. Going outside, even if it’s just to read on the porch, makes me happier all around. These days, it’s dark at 6pm, which leaves me less than an hour after finishing work and eating dinner to enjoy the sweet, sweet sunlight.

Outside is ugly. Oh, I agree that there’s a strange and desolate beauty to winter, without the leaves and flowers and other living things gracing the great outdoors. In fact, winter is the only time of year that I can see some of the Atlanta skyscrapers from my house–the leaves obstruct my view the rest of the year. But the still and quiet outdoors would be a lot prettier with a thick blanket of snow on the ground, wouldn’t it?

I’m mentally miserable. While I don’t suffer as much as those with diagnosed seasonal depression, I do experience a light winter depression that lifts its cloudy mood as soon as spring arrives. It’s the kind of depression that makes doing anything besides crawling into bed or engaging in hours-long Wikipedia crawls less desirable. Considering I usually have a lot to do in the winter, this is not good.

I’m also physically miserable. Plain and simple: I don’t like being cold. At all. Heck, I don’t even like being a little chilly unless I’m going for a run in the cool weather. But I also have bad circulation in my fingers and toes, which makes itself apparent in the winter with swollen and itchy appendages. This makes typing less easy than usual, which is unfortunate since I type and write as part of my job AND fun.

There’s nothing to look forward to. After NaNoWriMo, the Christmas holidays, and my birthday in the first week of January, there’s nothing to look forward to until spring. All the social gatherings and write-ins that go along with NaNo bleed into the holiday get-togethers, which bleed into New Year’s Eve and whatever I do for my birthday. And after that… nothing. No wonder I want to hibernate until spring. (I did host a taco dinner party with friends last Valentine’s Day. That may need to happen again.)

Each of these arguments comes with its own counterargument. For instance, fans of the cold will argue that you can put on more clothes when you’re cold, but there’s only so much clothing that you can take off. I could deal with any one of these winter nuisances on their own. Want to go outside? Bundle up. Simple. But all of these things together make winter the most miserable time of the year While each of these counterarguments makes sense, the fact remains that I have to deal with all these annoyances at once. And to that I say: Do not want.

So… how many days until spring?