Dancing to Bad Bunny won’t save me from February

I didn’t want to write this column. I still don’t want to write it. I dragged myself towards the new, blank document in the manner of someone walking towards the gallows. Even after that, it took me a while to actually get typing. If, somehow, one could slowly walk backwards from the concept of work, then that’s what I’d be doing right now – not making any sudden movements, in the hope that work doesn’t realise what I’m doing.

In my defence, this isn’t about The New World in general, or this piece in particular. I just don’t want to do anything at all, is the problem. We’re in early February, still deep inside the revolting armpit of north-western European winter, and I have what’s called a seasonal affective disorder. I like that it’s called SAD for short: “sad” is absolutely how I feel, and I, too, would put it into capital letters if given the choice. This isn’t a mere lowercase affliction.

Every year, roughly from late October to early March, I have to operate as normal, because life goes on, but my energy levels constantly feel depleted, and I have this voice that goes “oh, what’s the point!” constantly yapping at the back of my head. Sometimes it’s a whisper, sometimes a scream. It’s very hard to make it shut up.

I actually tried very hard to make myself feel better the other day, when London got one miraculous day of sun and mild temperatures. I sacked off work entirely and ended up walking and walking and walking, only stopping to eat lunch but still making sure to do so on a terrace. In the end, I was outdoors for nearly five hours that day. I felt so alive! It was a thrilling, gorgeous feeling.

The next morning I woke up to the rain hitting against my bedroom window, again, and I could tell immediately that I was back at square one. I didn’t want to leave my bed but I also hated the idea of staying in there; somehow everything felt wrong, there was no way of being that could make me happy.

I am, for the avoidance of doubt, aware of how ridiculous the whole thing is. Southern England doesn’t get especially cold, or especially wet, or especially dark. In the British Isles alone, there are places that would consider London’s winters to be child’s play. Still, I can’t help it. I sometimes wonder if my Moroccan genes are to blame, and I curse this one half of me which was built for kinder climes.

I also spend a lot of time trying to find ways of curing my sickness, instead of succumbing to temptation and merely wallowing in it for a third of the year, every single year. In 2025, I thought that maybe going out nearly every single night in January would help. It sort of did, but mostly it reminded me of the fact that I was too old to be going out every single night for a month.

This year I turned to culture instead, going to the cinema as often as I could and rinsing the capital out of art exhibitions. It… well it didn’t not work but, as with the walk, the effects were never that long-lasting. I could go to the pictures and have a lovely two hours then walk out into the damp wind and find myself cranky again. Sadly, because I can’t spend my entire life in a big dark room watching movies, it didn’t feel like a lasting solution.

Similarly, I recently got obsessed with Bad Bunny’s music, and have spent many happy moments dancing around my flat like a lunatic, forgetting all about my existential despair. While I would love to go through my days cha-cha-cha-ing from one work assignment to the next, that just isn’t possible.

Then again, maybe I’ve been going about it all wrong, and this is the entire point. I usually love warm, sunny summers because my mood remains buoyant the whole way through, no matter what I get up to. It’s a nice way to live but quite a weightless one.