Today is a good day

It’s all right there in those five words. Today is a good day. Today is the sort of day which had me bounding out of bed (albeit only at 11:45, but for me that is early these days) and throwing open the curtains. Once I had seen the state of the sky I threw open the French doors too, and spent a little while sitting on the step smiling at the plum blossom and the blue sky, while Minx (the world’s stupidest cat) purred in my lap. There isn’t much in life that I enjoy more than a summer’s day.

Sitting in the sunshine, basking in the warmth, and five minutes later as I bounced around the room with a Mika DVD playing full blast, I began to reflect on my relationship to the seasons. More importantly, the three way relationship between the weather, my mood, and my drug use. Is it coincidental that every winter, for as far back as I can remember, illegal substances have come to control my life to a point which has had me on the edge of breakdown, and every summer I’ve kicked the habit? (Or at least reined it in sufficiently for it to scare me less.) Last year summer was spent completely sober. Admittedly this came about as a result of a stint in rehab, but the rehab was needed because the winter had broken me so badly. The year before that I had almost gone to rehab at the end of the winter, but instead I packed my bags and spent two drug free months in Brazil before coming home and staying of the powder until, you guessed it, winter came around. The year before thatwas definitely not sober, but I was 21 and I was loving every second of the drunken pool parties and the long summer evenings. What I was notably not doing was smoking the crystal meth which had been slowly insinuating its way into my life over the preceding winter.

Reflecting on this up and down cycle reminded me of a day, almost exactly a year ago, when I felt like I did this morning. An overwhelming sense of bliss and hope for the future. Nothing could get me down. Things should have been able to get me down. I was driving my ex home when the joy kicked in. Five minutes before I had been heart-broken. We had broken up just a few weeks before, but were still spending a lot of time (and nights) together. He had stayed over the previous night – giving me a flutter of hope that this could still be fixed – and had announced that morning that he had a date in the evening. My mood went from wonderful to bitter in a matter of moments. Suddenly the world was a dark dark place. Until, that is, we left the house and I saw what a beautiful, beautiful day it was. The first signs of spring and summer were in the air. The sky was blue, the birds were singing and the blossom was out. All the harm that the boy could do me seemed inconsequential against a background of such a bright new world. I sang through the drive, dropped him off and gave him a goodbye hug, still smiling.

Of course, the mood didn’t last. Two weeks later he was engaged and I was about to start rehab. That, though, isn’t quite the point. What it has left me thinking is about why.Not why does summer make me happy and winter make me high. I know the answer to that. And the patterns speak for themselves. I suspect I could go back a decade and find that the same thing has happened to me every year. But rather why do I stay? Why not run away and find a country where the sun shines all year round, where the birds sing and the flowers bloom? If the difference between happiness and addiction is as simple as changing my climate, what has taken me so long? This, then, is my promise to myself. By the time that next winter rolls around, I will be ready to go. Next April will not find me pulling on my woolly jumpers and stocking up on cocaine. Instead I will be somewhere on the tropics in a strappy top with a virgin Daiquiri. Because sometimes being scared to make the big change is what is killing us.

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