6th
Sigh. So I’m having trouble returning to the working world. I wonder if this happens to me every January. I think it might.
There’s something so…final…or…sad…or…painfully unavoidable about the blissful month of December ending - taking with it its decorations, festivities, family time, cookie time, and overall Spirit - and in its place we’re left with this. Pffffft. JANUARY. Thhhhhppppp.
Fine, fine, January, great. Newness, beginnings, possibility, freshness, turning the page. All said jazz. And I can get on board with that, sure. I like New just as much as the next guy. I like to make lists and plans and to imagine what’s possible. Check back around, say, January 23rd and I’ll probably be marching to a different beat.
But today, only a few days into January and only day two of my return to the hideous (hideous!) work force, I still have the taste of December in my mouth. It’s still biting at my heels. And I cannot bear to tell it that it has to go home now.
I went home to Illinois for Christmas and then to the gulf coast of Florida for a few days after. And it was all heaven. Even the ‘boring’ family time in the midwest. And then Florida: The laying in the sun and baking my internal organs to a warm puree was enough to find me making promises to myself that I can’t keep. Like: I’m moving to Florida tomorrow. Fine, in February.
I miss waking up in the mornings over the break - early! without an alarm! - faced with a day of endless options. Shall I do some yoga first, or go for a run? Shall I sit here and sip coffee while I listen to my mom and my boyfriend chit chat about whatever the fuck. Shall I shower, or put on my bathing suit, or take a cat nap in the sun? What are we having for lunch? Are we going out tonight or staying in? It’s an adventure! Time passed so quickly but I soaked up every detailed drop.
I suppose on some level I know that a life like that is not realistic day in and day out. It’s a pipe dream. I know that that’s a vacation state, where things are different for a finite period of time, where no one has to work or be sober or change out of their pajama bottoms. That is a state for the end of December.
But there’s another level where I cannot understand why I shouldn’t be able to demand that out of life in January. Or stupid March. Or year round. Why can’t I have a lifestyle where I wake up in the morning and wonder what’s possible today, without restriction. Where I don’t have to be somewhere by a certain time just so I can sit uncomfortably in front of an electronic box and pretend to ‘work,’ while instead I just surf through the cosmos for someone else like me, who’s writing their Lament to What Could Be. Why can’t I have a lifestyle where I sit around in my pajama bottoms sipping coffee in my living room each morning until I decide it’s time to do some yoga, make myself an egg, and take a walk. Even if it’s 2pm. It doesn’t have to be warm outside for me to enjoy the hell out of that world. (Although I would eat warm with a spoon.)
Here’s the thing. I KNOW it’s possible. To have that life. Year round. I think that’s probably the most disheartening thing about it! I KNOW it’s possible. It’s not likely for the majority of the population, nor is it realistic to imagine that it will be me next week, but it is POSSIBLE. To someday have a life that looks more like that. Than it does like this.
It won’t be easy and it will require some thinking-outside-the-box to get there. Some brainstorming. And some risk taking. And some uncertainity. And probably some days without much cash. It will most essentially require courage. I do feel prepared to head in that direction. I do.
But today - day two back at work, data entry staring me in the face, the cubicle mate I could do without getting her existence all over me, the idea of fitting gym time in on my stupid lunch break and doing what I’m told and muscling through it all, day in and day out, 10am to 7pm, Monday through fucking Friday, week, after month, after quarter, for another year - today I feel a frustrated, sad longing for December.
