3 P.M. Should Be the New 6 P.M.

It just should be.

Please, allow me to explain. Ever since daylight savings time ended in November, and we lost an hour of daylight, the darkness has been unbearable. You’d think as a human species we’d be used to this dreaded ritual by now, and yet I find that in New York City the darkness creeps up on me and my peers not unlike a civilization-wiping virus. Everyone is instantly, somehow, paler, crankier, sleepier. Someone in the office almost always wearily announces, “can’t believe it’s only 3 p.m.” to which we all slowly roll our heads back and laugh, slowly, sarcastically, ha ha ha, like our mouths are cobwebbed chests that have just been opened for the first time in a hundred years and our laughter is the sound of their loud, creaky hinges.

It’s terrifying.

But what if it wasn’t only 3 p.m.? What if, when it became 3 p.m., yet definitely felt like 6 p.m., it just became… 6 p.m. And no, I don’t mean we start the work day hours earlier to accommodate. Let’s just agree to end it, right there and then. It doesn’t have to be the plan for everyone, maybe just a few of us. It can be our secret. I mean seriously, how can we expect anyone to function if it’s pitch black out in the middle of the day? We’re bloggers, not vampires.

You might say, Hazel, just drink a cup of coffee, you gorgeous (thank you) dummy. But no amount of coffee will change the fact that the day feels over at 3 p.m., I’m sorry. I don’t need to take vitamin D or purchase one of those SAD lamps. I’m tired of us all pretending like this is normal, to feel like I’m living and working a night shift in the winter months. We all just need to come to an understanding that as long as we have as much daylight as we have, the way we’ve structured it, we need to leave our work desks earlier. Just admit to yourself the 3 p.m. is the new 6 p.m. and crawl into bed.