For 18 years of my life, I had no idea what the changing four seasons meant. The weather never shifted dramatically in San Francisco, save for the few-day mini heat waves we’d experience, or the slightly elevated temperatures during our Indian summer between September and October every year. As I have spent more and more time on the East Coast, having just surpassed nine years living in New York and 13 years living on the East Coast, I think every time the weather starts turning from summer to autumn, I start becoming a little bit gloomier and more resistant to getting out of bed every day. I hate the cooling temperatures, the impending knowledge that right around the corner, the snow will be coming and the all the disgusting ice and muddy slush that follows it. I feel like either hibernating in my apartment under my covers, or taking every opportunity I can to run off to the warmer climates of the Southern Hemisphere at this time of year.

Genetically, some people are supposedly more predisposed to getting “seasonal depression” or seasonal affective disorder. Their bodies just don’t adjust as readily to the changes in temperature and weather. It’s not totally a mental block; it’s also partly physical, too. Your body starts physically rejecting the changes by making you more tired, eat a lot more or a lot less, sleep more. I feel like that this week. I wonder if there’s a way to test for that via our genetic testing that we’ve participated in. I wonder how predisposed I am?