January is always a difficult month. We usually get the big let down after holidays (last thing I remember was putting the turkey in the oven for Thanksgiving) and then we get January. On the good side, my daughter is excited because it is the month when she was born (birthday planning ensues every year). On the dreary side, the reduction of sunlight and warmth can be a challenge. Here in Charlotte, I miss the actual presence of winter. What we get is like an extension of autumn, but not a distinct season; it's like being hungry but too nauseated to eat--making January like a hangover.
Sure the holidays are fun with lights and parties and families getting together and decorations and blah blah blah... Yet, the funny thing about the holiday season is that for all of our talk about how "from now on our troubles will be out of sight," we rarely make any lasting changes in our life direction because of the holidays. Okay, I know all about Ebeneezer Scrooge, Frank Cross (Scrooged), Scott Calvin (The Santa Clause), and, of course, Walter Hobbs (the father of Buddy, the elf), but the truth is that after the excessive work and worry that goes into "getting ready for" the holidays (what the hell does it mean to "get ready" for a random date on a calendar?) we need some time to recover--take an aspirin, drink a Bloody Mary, eat dry toast, and be still. My problem, though, is that my mind is still carrying on like it did the season before and it's hard to shut down the hyper drive. But the worst is my own disappointment in myself--every year--that the holidays didn't change my very much if at all. And I am all too ordinary in that way.
One January I thought I was losing my mind. I just couldn't track, couldn't even hang with the Simpsons and barely Sportscenter. My head had all of these ideas, dreams, imaginings, fears, resentments, griefs, and loves piled up but not in any proper place. It took my cd changer being on random play and shoving Allison Krauss (the song, "Lose Again") at me on a snowy Sunday morning before the sun had even come up to get me right again. Something about the banjo melody and the memories of friends mixed with the beauty of snow falling made things okay. The friends in my memories were reminders that I could be okay again. Weird as it was, I started feeling better (please, no psycho analysis from those of you who enjoy the feeling of superiority that it affords you!). The goofy thing, as I saw it, was that when Allison was finished, the cd changed to Aerosmith singing that "It's amazing when the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright." The combination of memory and snow and a renewed feeling that the January hangover was not going to kill me--I would indeed feel alive again. After getting used to the disappointment that the holidays didn't end up, by themselves, making me a better person, I needed music to remind me that it was time to take out the trash and be the person that my friends want to be friends with. That Sunday, I cancelled church and made snowmen with my son.