daylight savings time: a complaint.

 Actually, this is not an attack against daylight savings time. It's standard time that actually sucks. When we "fall back" every autumn, it's a return to standard time. Standard time is when it's pitch black at 5pm, and I'm pretty positive everyone hates that. 

Whom among us suffers from some form of seasonal affective disorder, ie, the dark dark winter bums you out? I do. The other night, I fell asleep at 7pm. The darkness sucked every bit of energy out of me, so there was nothing left for me to do but just go to sleep. So I did.

All of us grown-ass adults feel jet-lagged all week when we lose or gain that hour in the spring and fall. But I never truly realized the absolute havoc it wreaks until I had a toddler of my own. This last week, Phineas has been a complete and total hot mess hellion. There has been screaming and smacking and wailing and gnashing of teeth. James said Phineas tried to gouge one of his (James's) eyes out - and James is Phineas's favorite person. 

If looks could kill.

Everyone else I've spoken to with children has said their kids have been crabby as well, though none have managed to do ocular damage. They also say they go through this every time change.

Plus, how frustrating is it to change all your damn clocks every six months? Especially when some clocks just flat out refuse to be changed?

So why do we still do this to ourselves?

I think we all need to band together as a country and take care of this, once and for all. We can't agree on a lot of things, but I think we can agree on this. Changing the time sucks. Let's just quit it. We have to get the whole country on board, though - not just a state here and a state there. Otherwise, it gets way too confusing for those who live in one state and work in another. It's all or nothing.

We need to get this on the 2022 ballot, but word it so that if you don't check any box at all, it's a vote to stop changing the time every six months. 

For the mental well-being of people of all ages, let's just stick to daylight savings time and be done with it. I know we'd have darker mornings if we did that, but personally, I think we need a little more light in the evening. Winters are hard enough.