The week in words #8

There's a part of me that thinks winter would be less unbearable if the internet wasn't full of people talking about how unbearable winter is. It's been all over Twitter, but other platforms too. I feel for the people with genuine SAD, as well as just everyone else who suffers from the lack of daylight, but part of me thinks it might not have been quite as bad hadn't I somehow ended up in this large online support group for people who suffer from winter.

Anyway: spring is in the air. You wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at the weather forecast, but you can smell it now sometimes – I see the world start to come alive, starting with the plant on my desk – it's sprouting with such genuine enthusiasm that it's a little infectious. I'm not quite out of the woods yet myself, but I feel a surge of energy going through me every so often, and that's enough for me to believe that easier times are around the corner.

You know how absence is said to make the heart grow fonder? It does – but sometimes it makes the heart grow fonder of absence. I'm going through a relationship crisis with London. This has only been intensified by the amount of travelling I've had to do over the past two weeks. Not that I've been anywhere I'd rather live than London (this time), but not experiencing the Underground for a few days really does wonders to the mind.

It's not that London hasn't been good to me – I have a very decent life here. But the more energy I find as the spring sun comes out, the more discontent I feel. Something has to change. I just haven't quite figured out what.