It showed up on my calendar and everything. I got invited to the party of good intentions and fresh beginnings and I made plans to attend but then, I don't know, I got distracted or I couldn't find the right outfit to wear or something and before I knew it I'd missed January.
At least that's what happened this year.
Last year I came down with influenza B on New Year's Eve. Or was it influenza A? It doesn't matter. It sucked. A lot. From that I developed a secondary bronchial infection and just as I was getting over that my cat attacked me. It wasn't a great beginning and I spent all of January 2013 in a pharmaceutically induced fog. For the entire month I was unable to do anything but read. While on the surface that doesn't seem bad, my brain was so addled by drugs I can't remember anything about the books I read. Not even the titles.
I was looking forward to a healthier and more productive January 2014, ready to greet the new year with hopeful anticipation of good things to come. But then, all of a sudden, I'm not sure why, I came down with a touch of indifference.
Ennui? I don't think so. Although the January Blues seem to be a thing, I don't really think that was what was happening. Granted, I've never been a huge fan of January. It has always seemed like the most moody and pessimistic of months.
Source: Google Images
I typically manage to tolerate it fairly well though. The best thing ever to come out of a January, for me, was Anna nineteen years ago, and even she wasn't supposed to arrive until later. Maybe in her fetal state she knew January would be in need of some joy and charm and sunshine so she decided to make her entrance earlier than anticipated. Since then she's always brightened the start of a new year in an otherwise disconsolate month. Anyway, the point here is, I don't think I was depressed.
I wasn't sad. Although I didn't wake up with my typical excitement and exuberance about what the day would bring, I did get out of bed every day. I showered. Washed my hair. I had no trouble working. Nothing seemed particularly gloomy but nothing seemed particularly funny either. I simply felt uninspired.
It started to bother me a little and I began to worry that I was going to settle into being dull, humorless, prosaic, and uninteresting. I wondered if I would have to retake the Myers-Briggs test and come up with a whole different personality type to fit the new boring me. I considered that this change would require a complete overhaul of my wardrobe to attire that is much more practical and better suited for my age. And I was going to have to repaint the interior of my house. Goodbye cheery yellow walls. So long purple counter tops. Get lost red couches. Ohmygod...I was becoming taupe.
Thank goodness I was too lifeless to over react.
Except I did. Which, if I'd stopped to think about it was a pretty good indication my dispassionate personality change was only temporary. And maybe not bad at all. What if it was just something my psyche needed to do. Perhaps, like all things in nature, my personality needed to go dormant for a while to rest and recharge. Maybe everyone goes through these phases and I'm just too narcissistic to notice.
I don't know.
Nevertheless, February came a long and like Punxatawney Phil, I poked my head out of hibernation, looked around, noticed the sunshine and somehow started to feel like myself again. Although I find The Holy Day of Romantic Obligation in February to be contrived and silly, yesterday I found myself making heart shaped cookies, dancing to the radio, and laughing at the quirkiness of life. My mother called and told me she has a new boyfriend and all seemed right with the world.
I can't say exactly what happened. And I'm not sure if I'd even categorize it as good or bad. It just is. But maybe that's the point. Perhaps all life asks of us sometimes is that we just go with what is for a while. Not what we expect it to be, or want it to be, or even think we need it to be. Maybe life just asks us to trust what is, knowing when the time is right it will nudge us out of hibernation, turn on the radio, and once again ask us to dance.
