In The Thaw
In January, Chicago experienced a polar vortex. Temperatures plummeted from the previously mild winter conditions to a sub-zero range. Classes were canceled, and hell (UChicago) proceeded to freeze over. Even my eyes got a little icy when I blinked. To add to this drama, I created a little conflict for myself. Feeling drastic and looking to the future—I will be studying abroad for three months starting in March—I began questioning my wonderful, restorative, and impeccably healthy relationship with my boyfriend. One night, after a lovely evening of cooking and a movie, I blurted out to him that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep dating when I was abroad. “I need to be fully present.” “I’m bad at communication when I’m elsewhere.” “What if we start to hate each other.” “It’s better to deal with this sooner than later.” I was churning out the most hallmark excuses as to why a distant self wouldn’t be content with being ‘tied down.’
A week passed, the mercury remained at the bottom of the thermometer, and I continued to spiral, so convincingly that my friends were egging me on. “See, I don’t want to break up, per se, but I just don’t think it will be sustainable come March.” They agreed. But then, once the weather returned to a delightfully mild state, I had a lengthy conversation with him in which he told me to stop being a selfish asshole, and I realized that a love-hating troll was possessing me. In about a week, conveniently coinciding with the beginning and end of the vortex, I drowned my relationship only to yank it out of the water and successfully revive it.
Now that we are in the thaw, with clearer minds and warmer surroundings, my boyfriend and I joke about the time I almost broke up with him. But what if I didn't pull a reverse card and we actually broke up? Did the cold snap make me an irrational bitch, warming just in time for me to come to my senses? We are entering a time of unpredictable weather patterns here in the American Midwest: -5℉ one week, 45℉ the next. But this isn’t just a regional thing. Across the world, temperatures are changing and bringing very real effects on the human body. This is not a new phenomenon. Studies have been tracing the link between mood and temperature since this whole climate debacle—a very light way to put it—began to surface. It's now pretty common knowledge that the colder months bring Seasonal Affective Disorder, the seasonal depression everyone likes to flaunt. On the opposite end of the metric, in an article cleverly titled “Temperature and Tempers,” economics master student John Sutton found strong evidence that “that hedonic state decreases above 20°C,” hedonic state being a fancy word for the tendency for a return to happiness. Essentially, at either end of the spectrum, our biology causes us to flip our shit.
So, as fossil fuels pump into the sky and leaders continue to ignore the planet’s decline, the rest of us confront a new, more dynamic cycle of literal ups and downs. Next time you feel like cutting off your friends or chopping away your hair, check the temperature. You may be falling prey to the little game mother nature is playing with us—laughing as she does it. In the thaw or the cooling, it all becomes clear. But what happens when the happy middle ceases to exist? Remember, as the earth burns, the people burn with it.
