December 21st

 

 

Today is the winter solstice, at my house near Seattle the sun rise was at 7:55am and it will set at 4:20pm. It’s raining buckets right now; the sky is grey and overcast. It will start to get dark around 3:30 this afternoon. In past years I've struggled with the impending darkness this time of year. I would leave my house to work in the city at 5:50am and get back home around 5:00pm. It was dark when I left home, dark when I arrived at the office, and dark when I came back home. If I didn't make time during the day to get outside, I could be convinced the sun never came up. 3 to 4 nights a week I would head over to the barn and get time in with Joe under the lights of the indoor arena. If I worked late, there was a good chance he would get an extra night off. I would crawl into bed exhausted knowing that I would be up when the alarm rang at 5:00am to do it all over again.

Every year I look forward to December 22nd, when the sun will set one minute later. Sometime in the middle of January I would have a bit of a crisis when I realized that it was still dark out, on January 15th the sun rise is at 7:52am and sun set at 4:45pm. I was still commuting in the dark, except now all the cheery Christmas lights are down and the rain seems non-stop. I dread this time of year every year, and it haunts me during the long days of summer. We joke about it during the hot, dry evenings in July when the sun is still setting after 9:00pm. We will be out on a walk around the neighborhood, looking up at a bright pink sky and by boyfriend will say "This will be 4:00pm in December!" and I'll add in how it will also be cold and wet. We vow to squeeze in every moment of warm light that we can throughout the summer, burning the sun into our retinas in hopes we can still recall it in those dark winter days.

 I was fully expecting another dark, dreadful December this year, but the COVID lock downs changed all of that. I started working from home in March, I believe everyone I work with expected it to be a few weeks to maybe a few months. Then we were told we wouldn't be back in the office until after Labor Day. By August it was clear that we were not going back anytime soon. As of now, we don't have a return date, and when we do return, I firmly believe we won't go back to the way things were. I found by working from home I was able to start my day earlier which allowed me more access to teams in the U.K. Without my commute I had a much better attitude about taking late night calls with teams in India. I don't mind being on a call at 9:00pm if I don't have to rush out the door the next morning to catch the 6:20am ferry to Seattle. With calls across multiple time zones I started to get creative with my barn time, often going earlier in the day and then getting back online when I got home.

As October and daylight savings time approached, I noticed the lesson program at the barn had started to really pick up. After 2:00pm in the afternoon there were multiple group lessons going on at once. It wasn't a big deal as we have 2 arenas, a round pen and plenty of trails to choose from, but once it would start getting dark at 3:30pm, this would put everyone in the lighted indoor arena. I did an experiment with my calendar, I blocked out 11:30pm to 2:00pm two days a week. I set the block to show me as "out of the office" which carried over to Slack. I used that time slot as my barn time. I walked to the barn from the house, worked with Joe and then did my "barn chores workout" while he was out in the pasture. I kept my phone handy in case anyone needed me. I would hop back online as soon as I walked in the door. I kept seeing the same thing each time I experimented, no one died because I was not at my computer for 2 and a half hours in the middle of the day. I talked to my boss about it who strongly encouraged me to keep doing it. I blocked out my calendar from 11:30am to 2:00pm from November to May.

Here we are on December 21^st and for the first time in more years than I can recall I am not fighting to keep depression at bay. This afternoon I will watch the darkness close from my home office windows, missing is the impeding dread that I might never see the sunlight again. In past years while commuting to an office I noticed my productivity would drop off dramatically after 3:00pm. Now I find I get more productive work done after 3:00pm because I’ve taken a mid-day break that included outside time and physical activity. My horse is getting worked 6 days a week and is the fittest he has ever been at this time of the year. When I haul him out on the weekends for 10-mile trail rides, I am confident that he is fit enough for the ride. My schedule adjustment allows for him to get pasture turnout year-round, something that wasn’t feasible when I was leaving the barn at 7:00pm. We are also riding outside most days of the week, only using the small indoor arena when it is raining hard. My own fitness level is dramatically better than it usually is this time of year. Instead of gaining weight through the lock downs, I lost 25 pounds after making changes to my diet over the summer and using my barn time as my non-negotiable exercise program.

2020 has been a year of curve balls, change and adjustments. I’ve come to a deeper understanding of what is important in my life, which led me to prioritize self-care. On the top of that list is my daily barn time which had resulted in improvements in both my physical and mental health. It turns out I was wrong about it getting dark today around 3:30pm. It is 2:00pm right now and the rain has been steady for the past hour, the sky is dark enough that it turned on the outside lights that are set to come on at dusk. Tomorrow is December 22^nd, and we will get back 1 more minute of daylight!