Month: February 2021

As the song goes, who loves the sun? Who cares that it is shining, who cares what it does since you — wait, I’m getting carried away. Still, it is a very good song, let’s be honest. But still: I’ve been thinking more than I might have expected about sunshine lately.

I’m not sure if this is an age thing or, perhaps, a “not being in a toxic relationship that makes you suppress your emotions all the time” thing — maybe it’s some mixture of the two, who can say? — but I’ve been finding myself far more affected by weather lately in terms of my mood and overall good humor. There was a morning of unexpected sun yesterday, and it made me almost immeasurably happier and more willing to embrace whatever the day had to throw at me than I had felt in weeks.

Realizing just how deeply something as simple as a bit of sunshine had affected me made me wonder just how much of the past month’s emotional difficulties could be put down to the fact that… well, Januaries (Januarys?) in Portland are cold, dark places to be. That’s perhaps a little too simplistic; after all, last month had its own issues that had nothing to do with any weather pattern whatsoever, unless THR‘s accountants were basing their decisions on what the temperature was like down in Southern California throughout the month. (Well, I’d like to think that, at least. Stranger things have happened, however.)

That said, I do wonder how much the perpetual gloom of the past month — the continual cloud cover, the cold, the wind, and the general January of it all, with days getting dark before I’d even left the office each weekday — had doomed my mood to the point where any news headed my way, whether bad or good, was certain to provoke an anxious, unhappy response. That there was such news that was, if not bad, then at least unfortunate and weird, almost feels coincidental at that point.

If there’s a moral to this story, then it’s likely that we should all try and avoid anything happening in January as much as possible — or, maybe, that I should think about investing in one of those artificial sunlight lamps if this is going to keep happening.

The response on Twitter to my announcement that I’m no longer contributing daily to THR — spoilers: it wasn’t my decision, not that of my editors. The accountants of THR‘s ownership, however, are likely to be thrilled by the outcome — was a surreal and awkward thing for me to experience, I’ll be honest.

As someone who doesn’t really like oversharing on social media, or even sharing that much personal information at all there, even just announcing that I wasn’t at THR anymore felt like something I didn’t particularly want to do, for fear of drawing too much attention to myself. It felt somewhat inescapable, however, if only to get the news out as quickly and as broadly as possible, to prevent me from having to tell people over and over again.

In that respect, it was… almost successful? The announcement certainly went wide, judging by the (overwhelming, embarassing) response, and yet I still woke up this morning to pitches from people wanting THR to announce new projects, so… mission nearly accomplished, I guess. It was still better than having to announce it over and over and over again for what likely would’ve been weeks on end.

But that response…! I almost made a joke about knowing what Tom Sawyer felt like, and then finding some uncomfortable way to work in that it’s always been the case because I’m a white straight male in a racist United States, but… that whole thing about being at your own funeral felt particularly true as I got compliments both directly and indirectly — honestly, perhaps the most surreal part of the whole thing — that felt both flattering and horrifically unearned for hours after I posted that I was leaving THR.

I knew, on an objective level, that I was going to have people saying nice things. If nothing else, it’s only polite to sympathize in such a way. I wasn’t prepared for such nice things, though, nor for there to be so much of it. I should, I know, take this as a good thing, and yet. And yet.