The weeks are moving faster than I expected. I think it’s the dark — when there’s almost no daylight, your brain loses its grip on what time it is, let alone what day of the week. I check my phone more often than I used to, just to confirm Tuesday is still Tuesday.
I’ve since learned this is common with ADHD — time blindness, they call it. The inability to feel time passing the way other people seem to. The Arctic dark makes it visible in a way that’s almost clarifying. When everyone loses their sense of time, it stops feeling like a personal failure.
Our boxes arrived just before Christmas. Three weeks of rationing — one dull knife, whatever turned up first in the luggage — and then suddenly everything was here. Also, somewhat frozen. We checked every can. The ones that swelled and stayed swelled, we tossed. The mayonnaise, against all odds, survived intact. I had feelings about the garlic. I missed pepper. These are sentences I didn’t expect to write.
Scarcity teaches you what you actually value. It’s not a comfortable lesson, but it’s a clear one.
On a harder note — we had our first loss in the community. A young man. Suicide is one of the most significant causes of death in northern hamlets, and the conversations here about why are honest and ongoing. The connection between rapid cultural change, the loss of traditional roles, and the particular kind of displacement that creates — it’s not simple, and the community doesn’t pretend it is. It weighs on everyone, and it should.
We’re glad to be here. Some weeks are heavier than others.