Your Internal Calendar

Many of us have a fairly reliable internal clock. We know the approximate time, though we may not have looked at a timepiece for several hours, and a fortunate few can even program themselves to wake up when they need to without benefit of an alarm.

We also have an internal calendar. We’re less aware of it than of the clock, probably because the calendar is more sensitive to the past than to the present, and its effect on us is more insidious.

I was reminded of that as I drove home in the dark of a recent winter evening. Driving north on Interstate 5 out of San Diego after doing some Christmas shopping, I realized I was descending into a funk—worse than the tristesse brought on by a melancholy melody, but not as bad as the gloom that accompanies a bout of existential angst.

This funk, in fact, was the kind of thing I would ordinarily try to ignore, to “busy” myself out of by diving into a project or distracting myself with a good book. Stuck behind the wheel of a car, however, I lacked those options. Instead, I wondered, “What’s this all about?”

The first thing I thought of was this: I don’t like the early darkness of winter. I don’t like getting home at 5:30 in the evening and feeling like it’s time to turn in for the night. Give me long days and short nights. I need sunlight; the more, the better.

But that didn’t seem an adequate explanation.

Then I remembered: Many years ago, before I became a therapist myself, a wise counselor had pointed out to me that the holidays and the weeks surrounding them had often been a time of trauma in my life, beginning with a near-fatal case of pneumonia when I was a very young child. Among other things, years later, my husband had been hospitalized with a dangerous staph infection on Christmas Eve. Another day’s delay, we were told, might have been fatal, and his recovery took many months.

Last year at this time, a broken leg and wrist had forced me to cancel a trip to a family gathering on the east coast. Over the years, there had been other daunting events during the deep of winter. But by far, the most devastating occurred two years ago when my husband was again hospitalized, this time with a terminal illness. Driving along on that recent winter evening, I realized that not only was this my difficult time of year, this was my difficult drive—the highway I had driven night after night as I returned home from the hospital.

That history was the source of my blues. My internal calendar said this was the season, not of comfort and joy, but of hazard and heartache. That realization didn’t make the funk disappear, but it did make it manageable. Knowing it was about the past, not about the present, gave me perspective and a sense of control.

The next time you experience the inexplicable, free-floating gloom that from time to time afflicts us all you might try poking around your history to see if you can connect that feeling to your past. It may help you move beyond it to make the most of the present.