BOREDOM

Every year the thoughts of winter start to flow through my brain and depression starts to set in, only this year it seems to be taking over sooner. It's 6:30 and it's almost completely dark. I had to dig out a heavy sweater today to take the dog out. It was 47 degrees this morning and it's not even Oct. yet.

I hate winter. I have always hated winter. Truthfully it is not so bad since I retired because I don't have to go out if I don't want to which is the cause of my boredom. I don't go out most winter days. Why I have stayed in Chicago my whole life has always been a question I can never answer except for family. I have said because I don't drive, Chicago is a great place to live. Public transportation in Chicago allows me to go most every place I care to go. And because I have always been a chicken, I was always intimidated with thoughts of going way from the comfort of home alone.

For the last two winters nothing kept me indoors. Snow, sleet, ice were no obstacle for me to overcome when I was out there campaigning for Barack Obama. In Iowa in December, knocking on doors in four feet of snow. Canvassing, working at the volunteer headquarters, phone banking, winter didn't stop me. Boredom was not in my vocabulary.

I wish I could find something that I believed in as much. I wish I could find something I could learn so much from as politics, I knew very little. I wish I could find something that I could meet so many wonderful and exciting people as I did then. That's the cure for boredom. I keep looking.