Reflections on January

I love January.  When I eventually retire and feel the urge to get out of Illinois,  it will be during March and April, because technically Mother Nature should be heading into spring during those months but for us in Northern Illinois, spring is slow to arrive and we are weary of the cold.  On the other hand,  it is supposed to be cold in January. The holidays are over, and for me it becomes the month where I can stop planning and just make everything all about me. The company is gone and so are the endless parties and gift giving.  I now have the time to binge watch shows, get some serious reading done, get the house back in shape, and learn something new (along with experiencing a “new normal” that seems to happen all the time now).   I also have time to delve a little more into celebrity culture, preparing myself for movie award season and all that goes with it. January provides me with what seems like a boundless amount of time.

My media plan for the month has been comprehensive.  I finished Narcos Mexico, blew through all three seasons of The Marvelous Miss Maisel, watched Black Panther, Vice, BlacKkKlansman, Roma, The Green Book, and the two Fantastic Beasts movies.  I revisited Dexter, my favorite show about a serial killer, completed season five of Grace and Frankie, and got sucked into “YOU” – anxiously awaiting season 2.

I set my reading goal for the year on Goodreads in January, as this motivates me to get a good head start.  I love the Goodreads platform – it’s like Facebook for readers.  There is a news feed to see what everyone is reading, and you can invite friends to join.  The platform allows you to create digital bookshelves to enter the books you have read and want to read. Anytime I get a great book idea, I go to Goodreads and shelve it as “to read”.  No more written lists for me.  This month I read “There There” by Tommy Orange, “When Breathe Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi, “Drinking a Love Story” by Caroline Knapp and my absolute favorite so far – “Hotel New Hampshire” by John Irving (my favorite weird and quirky author).  I review the books I read on Goodreads as it gives me great pleasure to do so. Finding a book that I love makes me want to share the joy with everyone.

Getting the house back in shape used to be a priority for me, but I have since changed my tune.  Granted, I adore taking down all the Christmas decorations and feeling that openness that is created once all the tchotchke’s disappear, but I no longer pride myself on always having a spotless house.   Life is too short to spend time obsessing over clean floors and bathrooms.   I read the book “Tidying Up” last year by Marie Kondo, thinking I would love it, but instead it made me feel like a ginormous loser. Here I was spending my time learning about all the ways to “tidy up” and how to get rid of what doesn’t give me joy,  yet feeling utterly joyless while reading the book.  January provided the premier of “Tidying Up” on Netflix, and the last thing I want to do is watch messy people “clean up”.  For me, constant tidying up equals “joyless”.

This January our new normal has been cold, snow, ice, cold, ice and more snow.  I experienced my first standing temperature of minus 24 which coupled with the wind chill made it seem like 50 below – a cold that literally takes your breath away.  January was the home of the longest government shutdown in the history of the U.S. (35 days) but do not despair.   January brings to its name National Bath Safety Month, National Oatmeal Month, and National Soup Month, and this year an announcement by  Kate Hudson that she would raise her daughter to be “genderless”.  I finally downloaded “Babbel” and am brushing up on my German, if it ever warrants that I will have to converse in Deutsch.   And so it goes.

2019 brings the promise of a new year, a new time, and the ever so constant permanence of change.   I am looking forward to the next few months, to see what additional opportunities to take, challenges to face, and some good old newsworthy tidbits to happen so we can say “remember when”?