the long short days of winter

While we have not yet actually passed the winter solstice, I feel that once the leaves have all fallen from the trees, the first snow has fallen and the temperature remain consistently below freezing, it is winter.  My days are long expanses of time spent alone and at home.  The hours when I am first awake, my favorite time of the day, speed by whether filled with ritualistic tasks, peaceful reading, or creative crafting.  Then mid-day a shift occurs with the changing light.  My mood dims, my energy wanes, and my sense of time slows.  I find filling those hours challenging at times.  I have no friends to visit. No family to visit. No idea what to do.  Today I bundled up and went for a walk before dedicating energy to knitting on the second sock of a pair.

I watch a tv show featuring family relationships and life's conflicts, and I am reduced to tears because I realize I have so few relationships in proximity.  I should be used to it, I have lived here 4 years now.  Some moments I am profoundly struck by my solitariness.  Though, my entire life I experienced more solitary than social.  When I was a child, I was the only child in the neighborhood much of the time.  I wandered alone through the woods, settling on a fallen log to read or riding my bike up and down the only road.  I guess what I am observing is that my solitariness is not a product of my geography, but of my tendency.

I also have somehow lost my passion. All my passion.  I reflect on my being and find no passion, for anything.  Not work, not intimacy, not writing - I am without that fiery fuel that spurs creativity, connection... the sparks have dampened, like the light outside my window.