A Second Person Account of PHD, Hypothetically Speaking

PHD. Post-Holiday Depression. That's what I'm calling it. September strikes like a new school year, filled with foliage and fall clothes. October brings a much-anticipated chance to be someone else for a night and November, well...who doesn't like stuffing your face? December comes with financial stress for about a week until you work out a solution on how and who to buy for. The fam drives you batty until the magic of Dec. 25 bestows itself upon you and you're suddenly grateful for your little life and those in it. The Merry Christmas text messages pour in and you know you're loved. New Years brings hopeful expectations and a hangover and then, BAM! It's all over. Maybe there's something to the fact that most people start out the year by feeling like crap. So you're hungover (hypothetically, of course), maybe you trek to the drugstore for some aspirin. But what do you see? A depressing mess of 50%-off holiday decorations and an aisle full of red and pink. Valentine's Day chocolates, hearts and teddy bears. Teddy bears that you probably won't receive if you're single. So now you're hungover, dateless and have no where to store the new holiday décor you just had to buy because hey, it was on sale.

So you walk back home, stepping over evergreen trees that have been tossed out like day-old KFC. But you think, hey, at least it's not snowing. Everyone likes snow in December, but in January? Hell no. Especially if you live in New York, because January and February is when the real winter starts, and that's not snow. It's dirty gray slush that (hypothetically) ruins your Manolo Blahniks. You reorganize your apartment, trying to find crannies to store your new holiday swag and useless Christmas décor for next year, when it suddenly hits you. All those things you'd planned to do in 2006? None of it happened. You're at your same old job, five pounds heavier. Perhaps you tried to (hypothetically) get a plant last year like the movie 28 Days suggests. And you deprived the pot of purple geraniums of water, so they died. Then you got a kitty, and she died, too. But there's always 2007 to start over. So yeah. I won't lie. I've been depressed for two weeks over all facets of life, hanging onto life by a pink thread. Is that normal?