January has always been a struggle for me.
I confess to not being the biggest Christmas fan - I’m big into receiving presents, my eyes struggle with all the extra lights, find the cheer to be annoying and I don’t like cinnamon, orange or raisins (which are in a lot of Christmas flavoured things). I’m not a total grinch - I do like giving presents, chocolate, and baileys, and have trained myself to enjoy a mulled cider. Anyway my point was more, my January issues aren’t just post Christmas blues, because usually I’m happy to see the back of the most wonderful time of the year.
I’m also very into reflection and resolutions (probably to the point of it being a flaw), so I enjoy all the New Year resolutions and religiously complete the Year Compass (and whatever else is trending in the resolution space). Again, the issue isn’t the expected hatred of the New Year New Me stuff, I’m all on board for that.
The weather doesn’t help, but this isn’t just Seasonal Affective Disorder - I don’t mind the cold, I can wrap up warm and still get some fresh air and hikes in (the rain this year is awful though). Last year I was somewhere sunny and warm for part of December, this year I head off part way through January. Both these activities seem to only deepen my January blues.
I should probably pause here and point out - I’m very happy and content with my life. I love my partner, and our house. I am excitedly building my own company (which I think is going well but who knows). I have hobbies I am passionate about , and friends to share these with. I get to travel and have amazing adventures planned for 2024. My January aversion is weirdly nothing to do with my very wonderful life.
But still January is a weird time of year when I very aptly feel my own mortality. I get an overwhelming sense of the things I haven’t done, and which (at the bloody ancient age of 32 - deep sarcasm, in case that didn’t come across) I might not actually get a chance to do. And these thoughts actually knock the wind out of me, every year like clockwork at the beginning of January in a really paralysing way. Except in 2023 when I was working a horribly stressful job and I’m not sure I even knew it was January. Not a recommended coping mechanism, but pretty effective.
The type of freak out I have in January is, I am painfully aware, one of immense privilege
- I never got to be a digital nomad
- I never took a few months off work to travel
- I haven’t been to X place (although that one gets quieter every year)
- Am I getting too old to decide to have kids?
- Should I be focusing on my pension instead of starting a business?
- I always wanted to move from the UK to somewhere warmer, but I’m still here
- I never got to be a writer, or a teacher, or an academic
- I wanted a more chill life, being creative and here I am a CEO of a startup…
Not everyone even gets the luxury of these being considerations, I do know that. But, my god, it’s loud this year.
Every year I am reminded of the Sylivia Plath extract from the Bell Jar:
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
I started writing this as I was hoping it would be cathartic, and I was a bit worried about reading this extract as it usually makes me catch my breath and feel immensely sad and wistful. However, this year I read and I realise I’m not sitting at the bottom of the tree watching all the figs fall. I’m climbing the tree, and the higher I go the more figs I’m uncovering.
I love that ChatGPT made my deep words on figs look like the Matrix scene where humans are being grown.
Here's to 2024 and a year of creepy AI-powered possibilities.