 | | Lilli Carré |
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"The fatigue I feel these days is unlike any other I've ever felt. I end each day just WRUNG out." |
— Susan Orlean, the author, on Twitter |
With the arrival, however ragged, of Covid vaccines, it has nearly been possible in these last few weeks to feel something like hope. New case numbers are falling; more than one million people get the vaccine jab in the United States each day. It is not yet the dawn of a new era, but the color of the dark has shifted just enough to remind us that night will eventually end. |
These months, as President Joe Biden said in his inaugural address, present "a winter of peril and possibility." Thousands of people are ill with the coronavirus; many will not survive. Deadly storms have frozen pipes and blacked out millions of homes. Both the virus and the weather demand that we stay indoors, hunker down and feed on what by now are sorely depleted supplies of patience and resolve. |
If you are feeling exhausted and limited these days, you are not alone. "The fatigue I feel these days is unlike any other I've ever felt. I end each day just WRUNG out," the author Susan Orlean wrote last month on Twitter. "It's a kind of weariness that is new to me." |
"A lot of people are worn out with trying to be so good, and trying to stay in and not socialize and keep their children safe and their parents safe. All of it takes a toll," said Jacqueline Olds, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In many ways the winter is worse because "many people simply don't go outdoors," she said. |
Even in so-called normal times, winter can be a hard season in which to maintain equilibrium. Less exposure to sunlight can cause a disruption in our circadian rhythms and in our production of the neurotransmitter serotonin, both of which can trigger dips in mood. Women experience the most serious form of this seasonal change in mood, seasonal affective disorder, at four times the rate of men. |
Yet the hardest winters of our lifetimes might not necessarily correspond to the calendar, as the writer Katherine May explains in her recent book, "Wintering." Ms. May writes about winter as a metaphor for the inevitable times in life when it is no longer possible to maintain the pace of growth and forward motion we have come to expect, when the realities of loss, death and sorrow keep us closer to home. Times like right now. |
"Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world," Ms. May writes. "We like to imagine that it's possible for life to be one eternal summer and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves. We dream of an equatorial habitat, forever close to the sun, an endless, unvarying high season. But life's not like that." |
Ms. May originally intended to write an exploration of how people endure winters in various cultures and climes, a book whose research would require travel and interviews. |
But then the cold set in. And one sort of wintering became another: Her husband became ill. Ms. May got a Crohn's disease diagnosis, and she left her job as an academic. Their young son began having emotional struggles and needed time off from school. Under circumstances she would never have chosen, she produced a book that serves as a guide for this moment none of us want to be in. |
Having weathered several such punishing seasons of life, Ms. May writes that she has learned to survive them in part by treating herself "like a favored child: with kindness and love." That means patience and personal care — more sleep, more walks, nourishing foods, less pressure to produce and compete. |
It also means acknowledging the reality that this is impossibly hard. There are children to care for, and vulnerable family members to worry about. Those lucky enough to still have jobs feel they're working harder than ever. |
Of course, resilience matters. But given the dearth of practical support, "we need to understand that emotional resilience might not be enough," said Brian Hughes, a professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway, who specializes in the psychology of stress and crisis. Evidence from past catastrophes suggests that people don't falter psychologically because they don't have enough personal fortitude, but because they have too many external pressures. |
That the pandemic has forced us to stay apart when we need one another most doesn't help, either. |
"It upends our instincts about what to do when life gets hard. Where we crave connection and touch, it forces us into isolation and distance," the journalist Rosie Spinks wrote in a recent essay. "Where we want to hold physical space for our collective experience, it forces us to process things on our own, to detach from the tangible world and the way it helps us integrate things — even sadness and loss." |
In that quiet space of reflection, the best gift we can give to ourselves or those we connect with from afar is honesty, Ms. May writes: "We need people who acknowledge that we can't always hang on. That sometimes everything breaks. Short of that, we need to perform those functions for ourselves: to give ourselves a break when we need it and to be kind. To find our own grit, in our own time." To remind ourselves that even the iciest winters thaw eventually. |
Here are five articles from The Times you may have missed. |
 | | Clockwise from bottom left: Reyna Roberts, Miko Marks, Mickey Guyton, Rissi Palmer and Brittney Spencer. The five women spoke about their experiences in Nashville.Photographs by Lelanie Foster for The New York Times |
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- "You're good, but we don't know what to do with you." Five singer-songwriters discuss the challenges of carving out their own path in country music. [Read the story]
- "They were the best qualified." Promotions for female generals were delayed over fears of President Donald Trump's reaction. Under a Biden administration, the nominations are expected to go from the Pentagon to the White House within weeks and then to the Senate for approval. [Read the story]
- "I'm a retired Marine. I can guarantee you no one coerced me." New York State will now allow gestational surrogates to carry babies for other parents. Here's why they do it. [Read the story]
- "I feel vindicated on behalf of all the women who have ever spoken up on sexual harassment in the workplace." A court in New Delhi on Wednesday acquitted an Indian journalist, Priya Ramani, of defamation after she accused M.J. Akbar, a prominent former government minister, of sexual harassment. [Read the story]
- "Young people should not miss out on their education because of something that is a normal part of life for half the population." Starting in June, New Zealand will provide free period products for students at all schools. [Read the story]
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In Her Words is edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson. |
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