January is Evil

January is probably my least favourite month of the year. It’s usually around six weeks from being paid in December, until pay day in January. There are countless social events because of the number of birthdays of friends and family, (normally a good thing, unless you’re really stretching the monthly salary), and to top it all off I’m busier than normal at work. There seems to be a yearly occurence at work in January that I’m not going to talk about, but I am getting pretty sick and tired of having to do.

For the last few years I’ve been quietly saying that my New Year begins in February. January is such a struggle that it strips the soul, and makes doing anything for the sheer enjoyment of it very difficult. The brutality of this month is one of the other reasons I almost never concern myself with the standard concept of New Years Resolutions. I know I’ll never stick to them, because of the weeks ahead. Thankfully I’ve managed to write every day, though I haven’t wanted to half the time.

However, in under two short weeks this hellish month will be over and sanity will be restored. Febuary is a month filled with hopes and dreams; laughter and fun; productivity and achievements. It is a month where I can actually relax and work towards my long term goals without the extra stress that comes with the first month of the year. It has historically been one of my more productive periods of the year, and now that I have specific goals and milestones set for this year I’m expecting that productivity to be greatly increased.

This seems like a completely irrational thing to be talking about, but I honestly cannot remember the last January I’ve had where I wasn’t completely stressed out, and praying for the month to end… no wait, I do remember. It was in 2002 and I was backpacking up the Australian east coast. That was a fun January! It’s the only one I remember in my adult life though.

I think I’ve achieved about a quarter of the personal projects I wanted to this month, and that’s purely because I’m getting home exhausted and stressed almost every day, and my weekends have either involved working, or recovering. There hasn’t been a useful weekend yet this year.

So please hurry up and get here, February. January is evil, and must be stopped!