The five stages of post-spring break grief

Spring break came and went, and despite our new tans and the monster of a hangover, we’ve been thrown back into the Hopkins minefield.

Wouldn’t it have been great if midterms were the week before break, and then we could haved eased ourselves back into school during these couple of weeks? Yeah, it would be, but midterms at Hopkins are always. So down a few ibuprofen, pick up a venti from Starbucks, and hit the books.

But first, let me lead you down the five stages of grief. Don’t argue. You are grieving. You’ve lost something near and dear to your heart: the freedom to party. Gone are the warm nights you spent dancing on the beach, or the raging good times you had laughing at the high schoolers in your hometown, or the unforgettable moment of biting into one of your mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies for the first time in months.

Now you’ve been thrust right back into the crazy, unseasonably cold world of academia. How are you supposed to return to your schoolwork when you’re suffering from a very specific seasonal affected depression? You’ve got the post-spring break blues, and you can’t work in this condition.

You say you’re fine? Well, that’s just the first stage of grief: denial. You are totally okay with the fact that you tasted the sweet ambrosia of break before having it wrenched away from you after only seven days. That doesn’t bother you at all. Alright, well, how about the fact that you’ve got three midterms, two papers and a group project all due in the next four days?

Okay, there you go, you’re starting to realize it. You’ve been wronged by the calendar system, and you’re angry about it. You’re in the second stage now, and you have every right to be. You got a glimpse of the glorious freedom of summer, but then it was snatched from you after only a week, and you were forced to return to the cold depths of academia. Unless you’re from the north, in which case, welcome to the warmth.

Why would Ronny D let you experience Cabo, Miami or Panama City Beach if he was only going to make you return to the oh-so-thrilling worlds of organic chemistry and Shakespearean sonnets? How dare he! If Ronny D wasn’t so cool, you would want to egg his house.

You’re not angry at our illustrious and rad president, though. Are you even angry at anyone anymore? Not really. You’d do anything to get just one more day of spring break.

That brings us to the third stage, bargaining. You really would do anything. If you could just have one more day of break, you’ll study really hard for your chemistry midterm. For another week, you’d start going to the gym. For two weeks you would buy every homeless person on St. Paul Street enough sandwiches to last them through the end of the semester. And for another month? You would never procrastinate again.

Maybe you wouldn’t go that far. You wouldn’t trade the hours you spend scrolling through Tumblr for anything, except maybe permission to keep a pet in the dorms. You’re finished with the bargaining, then. On to the next step: depression.

You’ve been crying a lot, and you don’t really know why. You think maybe it’s because it’s so cold, or because you’ve got a lot of work to do and you’re really stressed out. Well, that’s wrong. You’re crying because you’re still grieving over your loss.

Once you’ve realized it, you wonder if you’ll ever move past this debilitating sadness. Will you ever be able to smile again? You were so happy over break, lying under the sun, but without that week of bliss, you might never feel such joy again.

When the sun goes down, you wonder if it’ll come up again, each morning you wonder why the sun shines so stupidly bright when it’s still freezing outside. But hey, at least the sun is shining. We’ve only got a few more weeks of the semester left, and then it’s summer!

Ah, summer, the most magical time of the year. (Don’t bring Christmas into this or we’ll need a new outline for post-holiday grief.) Summer is so close you’re already sweating from the heat. You can already taste the popsicles, the beach trips and best of all, the departure from the library.

Just keep thinking about summer, and you’ll be fine. You’ll reach the final stage, acceptance, and it will be like the spring break blues never existed in the first place.

Disclaimer: My knowledge of depression and seasonal affectedness disorder is cursory at best. If you think you may be suffering from one of the two or feel the need to speak to someone, consider visiting the Johns Hopkins University Counseling Center (web.jhu.edu/counselingcenter), a great resource here at Hopkins, or the student run group, A Place to Talk (pages.jh.edu/aptt).