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Monday, November 17, 2014

OMFG - How to Cope with the Winter Blahs

Note: [Just a little note before I get into this post today: I will be launching a new blog soon! A properly branded and well-curated blog. Oh what's that you say? Is OMFG not properly branded and curated? In a word - no. OMFG was created because twenty-year old Sheila was going through whatever crisis twenty-year old Sheila was going through at the time (there were many) and needed some kind of catharsis. Hence the name, nature, and overall tone of OMFG. While it has been a great platform for me to, how shall I put this eloquently -- brain vomit onto -- it's time to move on. However, with a lot of work still left to do before launching the new one, I will continue to brain vomit on here. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled - I look forward to sharing my passion project with you all soon!]

I woke up to a cavalcade of texts this morning with the same message: all my friends utterly freaking out about the first snowfall in the city. Mass horror. Multiple repetition of the word depression and the phrase but what will we do?! You'd think a bunch of Canadians would be used to the white stuff by now, but apparently not.

As a born and raised Torontonian, I can empathize with the shock and awe every year. Perhaps you one-seasoned dwellers (I'm looking at you, L.A.) are all well-adjusted with your even doses of vitamin D and sunshine and whatever, but us seasonal east coast folks are moody, emo, and perpetually introspective. You would be too with four different seasons, of which two include what can best be described as slivers of sunlight. Forget the struggle. It's the angst that's real.

The first snowfall signifies Toronto's transformation into Gotham for the next goodness-knows-how-long. It goes dark at 4 in the afternoon. Everyone is in black, gray, or some shade in between, and interactions in public are not between two people but rather between your face, the two feet of ground in front of you, and the fur to the left and right of your cheeks. Lovely indeed.

An easy time to get depressed? Surely. But us Canadians have more than one way to beat the winter blahs. Call me naive but I find something quite romantic about the change of season. The city becomes gritty and intense...and as much as I hate trudging through it in my Weitzmans, the snow blankets all the city's imperfections and is nothing short of beautiful. It's called cuffing season for a reason -- the interactions we do have are more meaningful because if I'm going to step foot into the post-Apocalyptic wasteland that IS the outside world to come see you or vice versa -- it better be worth it.

If being one half of a spooning/Netflix situation isn't your thing there's always the tried and true winter solution of good old alcohol. Nothing, and I mean nothing, warms a body up quite like it. Say what you will about we the north, but afraid of the cold physically is something we're not. As a promoter in the night life scene, I can safely say that girls are just as, if not more sparsely attired in the dead of winter than the summer. Bare legs and sky-high heels are a night time observation to  be made year round. The parties are even arguably of better calibre given the frost. How is that possible? Well let's put it this way: those who are willing to make the trek from condo to club are in for the long haul. No one missions out in the cold without a die hard mission to party and party hard. Even during our Ice Age of a winter last year, I had some of the best times with my good friends, copious amounts of vodka and not much else. Snow be damned. We're good as long as we have ice.

So whether you're viewing the winter onslaught romantically through rose-coloured glasses or through the slightly hazy eyes of vodka, whisky, or other choice poison, know that it's going to be okay. I personally always set out to do the latter but that inevitably leads to the former. Who knows. All we know for sure is that winter is coming. We got this, Gotham. x