Up until yesterday I had never heard of FOMOS, or of having FOMOS but it’s strange how you can go
through life until one day something someone says makes sense, they give a name
to something that you knew you had but didn’t realise others were the same!
And no FOMOS isn’t another gay thing….. FOMOS suffer from fear of missing out on sunshine.
Yesterday I
opened the Evening Standard (article) on my journey home and found an entire article about
FOMOS. I have known I was suffering from my time at school, I was last in
from any sunny lunch time, I would only sit in the sun and ‘not going out’ on a
break was not an option.
Having said that, at the
age of 14/15 I was not a fan of sunbathing it was more just the fact that a tan
made me look healthy and the more I was out in the sun the more I was likely to
tan.
However, it was after I
graduated and entered the world of work that my FOMOS got bad. I was a social
smoker-hanger-on just so I had a reason to be outside. My Manager at the time
actually thought I smoked but no, I just stood outside, face to the sun.
And driving home, to
maximise sun exposure I drove home in a bikini – no lie – and not my proudest
moment but it’s true. Before leaving work I would put my bikini on and then
head out dressed as I had been all day but ready to strip if the sun was hot
enough! Hell, I did everything to avoid the FOMOS!
Meeting Laura was the
first time I really had to acknowledge I suffered with FOMOS though. Up until
that point I had gravitated towards other FOMOS suffers who felt like I did. We’d
all be first out the door on a sunny day and I just thought that everyone else
was odd. Did they not realise the sun is an unpredictable beast that disappears
as quick as it arrives, that it constantly has to try to avoid clouds and give
us our vitamin D?!
Laura was baffled by my
behaviour every time I saw the sun. She had no concept of why I would happily
spend my lunch breaks chasing any patch on sunshine I could find, or how quick
I could de-robe to get my tan on. I think she even called me desperate! The
cheek!
It wasn’t until we went to
Australia to live that I managed to get my FOMOS under control, the desperation
subsided and I could relax knowing that day after day I didn't need to chase
the sun. It was amazing.
Right now I think I have
my FOMOS under control, that and Laura is now also a mild sufferer (after 6 years of not having a proper Idaho summer) so we are together
in our need to get outside most of the time. You may have seen a few garden
pics taken in the few hours of sunshine we were lucky enough to have!
In the article it mentions
that FOMOS put life on hold as the sun comes out, this is so very true, I have
rearranged catch ups that were booked at restaurants to avoid my FOMOS ruining
dinner – there is nothing worse that me mournfully looking at the sun through a
window!
I have also realised in
announcing this that maybe my FOMOS is not that under control…it was only 2
days ago that I found myself stretched out on a ledge of the Bank of England
catching rays, ignoring the fact that my hands were placed in dirt- dark grey
pollution kind of dirt- just to get as much of my body in the sun as possible.
Oh and I recently found a
office that reflects the sun so if I am talking to Laura on a lunch break I can
stand in the prime position and catch up with two favourite things – Laura and
the sun! J
We don't have near enough sun here but I do think it is more than 62 days... although this year it feels much less... I hope you have a really nice warm clear sunny day for your wedding in Idaho :)
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting! I was just telling my boss that when the sun is out I'm so restless and not content inside. I feel an immediate need to go for a walk or sit out by my car, with the sun spearing me. I think Utah and Idaho are pretty similar in climate, I'm not totally sure, but they're close together so I figured. Anyway, Utah will have weeks with no sun during the fall and spring, it will be rainy and gray. Then when the sun does come out it's only for a minute, those season are so hard for me!
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