Winter has never been a good time for me. Well, that's not exactly true, once, when I was a kid, it meant "SNOW DAYS!" and running outside to completely trash the front and back yards with footprints, snow angels, snowmen, snow forts, snow castles, igloos, and knocking down every icicle in arm's reach.

As an adult, however... ever see one of those wildlife programs on North American forests where all the deer lose weight during the Winter and struggle not to starve, gnawing on bark in desperation? That's me. Even with free access to limitless food and indoor warmth, I tend to lose weight throughout Winter, and that's counting the holidays.

This is not good for me. My fursona is a slim wuff because that's my RL physique. Bones, skin... that's it. Oh yeah, just enough muscle in-between. As the car commercial says "Everything you need, nothing you don't."

So anyway, my instinct is to hibernate, but, unfortunately, humans just don't work like that. This year was the coldest, snowiest Winter in a long time, and I made the mistake of giving in to the instinct. For months, I stayed up until dawn, then slept until 4 in the afternoon, then basically moved from the bed to the computer to the bed, zero exercise. When the computer broke down, I moved from the bed to the bed, playing animal crossing new leaf with the occasional outing from the lair to buy a new cyberpunk novel when the last on ran out... not exactly exercise.

And so I reached a rock bottom of sorts in January, 10 lbs underweight.

That's normal for me, I usually lose 10 lbs per Winter, big deal.

However, so little core muscle just a few sit-ups strained my muscles (I had slowly worked up to 100+ without thinking about it, now I have to earn it all over again ><) so then I couldn't exercise AT ALL (just standing felt bad) and couldn't eat much without feeling like I was too stuffed to breathe.

Well, still wasn't going to tell anyone... it's just embarassing to get THAT out of shape... >.<

February, I started to feel hungry ALL the time, eat a full meal, and STILL hungry even though I'm too full to eat anymore. Hmmm... it's almost as if I'm underweight... yes, I'd lost another 5 lbs, o_O

Last two weeks have been rebounding from the bottom of the hole. More sleep + more exercise = able to eat more food. And getting out of a rut of eating the same foods over and over and over and not getting proper nutrition, or really enjoying food either. I'm coming alive again. So far, I gained 5 lbs in 2 weeks and feel great. I'm surprised every time I eat "too much" and don't feel like I'm dying afterwards.

All that brooding on death and atheism lately? Yeah... late night in the Winter when I was so underweight and tired I could FEEL death creeping up on me, every breath becoming harder to take... It wasn't "death" I felt per se, it was being out shape :p

This is the closest I've been to The Great Illness of 2007 without being THAT bad. I'm not sick. I'm not sneezing and coughing, My stomach is basically functional and can tolerate meat and sugar.

The Hole is also an emotional state I'm working out of. Fear of "jobness". Fear of moving on in life. Regret, feeling I don't deserve my degree because I came so close to failure it should count as faliure, therefore I don't deserve the career that comes from it. I collect new things, but I don't use them, I buy new games, but don't play them. I organize information into stories to write, but I don't write them. I was even thinking of reasons to not go out of the house... FCN is dead, and it's replacement is bound to suck so why bother going?

It's a series of interconnected hang-ups mutually reinforcing into some kind of bush made of dead sticks surrounding me, until nothing gets done. The ultimate endgame of my tendency to stymie myself with "if-then" logic. (example: I really want to pc game, but the room is dusty, so I need to vaccuum it, but I should do some stretches first, but the room is so dusty I don't want to touch the carpet to do the stretches but I should eat first anyway... result: I nibble on some food and watch Kitchen Nightmares instead :p yes, I have had days like that. I've learned to just vaccuum the damn room back pain or no back pain)

I'm feeling better enough physically that I'm starting to think: ENOUGH! All this bullshit is a gordeon knot. Cut it. You do what you really want to do by DOING IT.

Today the weather topped 50F and I emerged from the house, briefly, like an animal coming out of hibernation. So maybe I didn't beat the instinct after all and I'm merely following it ~_~

Shout out to and Amenophis for pointing out everything I'm afraid of is Normal Shit Everyone Goes Through.