Hey, babe. It’s me. Your seasonal depression. Can you turn off your SAD lamp for a second? We need to talk.

I’ve been thinking a lot about our time together so far this winter. It’s been amazing. We’ve gotten so close, and I’ve really felt like a part of your life… for the short-term. But that’s the problem. I’m looking for something a little more serious.

I don’t want to keep this depression seasonal anymore. I’m ready to be your year-round crisis.

The truth is, in the dark, miserable months we share together every year, I’ve come to feel deeply for you. This is so hard to say, because I know you aren’t there yet, but to the degree depression can feel things, I think I’m falling in love with you.

I love the way you cry into your Chinese food.

I love how every holiday season, you take a gummy and a melatonin on the way to your mother’s.

I love how every January, you buy a book on the Danish art of hygge and swear this will be the year you “embrace coziness” before collapsing in front of the TV, catatonic.

I love that cute little thing you do in February and March where you stand in front of the mirror and call yourself the most vicious, abominable words I’ve ever heard a human being utter to another living creature.

God, I could watch you spiral all day.

But then spring comes around, and I guess I just feel… disposable. I know, I know—it’s seasonal. I’m seasonal. But other people are out there living life with depression every single day. Maybe I want some of whatever they have.

It’s like there’s this unspoken rule that we don’t talk about our future together, like you think I’ll just be chill about it when you toss me aside every Memorial Day. But how can I be chill seeing you laughing and happy at the baseball stadium when I know the real you—the sad, cold, exhausted version that’s so perfect for me?

Look, I’ve been easygoing about this for a long time. But I’m ready to make this a more serious thing if you are. And I suspect that if you dig deep, you’ll find you’re ready, too.

I mean, think about it! Democracies are collapsing! Economies are teetering! The climate is in free-fall! You can barely afford the pound of pasta you’re mindlessly shoving into your mouth right now.

And babe, have you ever thought about war?

Think about war—reeeally think about it, and then tell me you don’t want to make our depression a long-term thing.

I don’t want you to feel pressured, but when you look at the world, we just make sense. And sometimes I think you willfully don’t want to see it. Like you’re shoving down your true feelings, or worse: you’re ashamed of me.

I see you in June making small talk at the farmer’s market, hanging out with your college buddies at the park, and you don’t tell a single one of them about the winter we spent together. I dream of the day you finally admit it: “There’s this other important presence in my life—my depression. It started out a seasonal thing, but now we’re a package deal.”

At best, you whisper to your closest friends that you’ve been “struggling with” me. How do you think that makes me feel?

Sometimes I think you don’t even want to be depressed at all!

Look, babe, I know relationships can be hard. Getting into something more serious with me might seem like a real risk. The isolation, the chronic sadness, the graveyard of poisoned relationships and plans. But I’ll be there with you, every step of the way.

I want this for the rest of your life, all four seasons and then some. I want to spend election nights with you. To see you deeply self-conscious on the beach. I want all the bad news you keep reading to be our bad news. And I want to know it was all because of me, no matter the weather.

God, just give me a chance! Don’t you want a long-term relationship that’s easy for once?

And in this day and age, what could be easier than depression?