January is an awful time to begin anything, let alone a new year. The sun - when it condescends to appear at all - is low in the sky and soon departed. The snow season is just getting into gear. The flu season and the income tax season are right behind it, and the guilt of holiday over-indulgence is beginning to push its way to the front of our minds, although it won't reach full strength till the credit card bills arrive.
It is too cold to go jogging; the wind freezes your nose. It is too cold to diet; the cold magnifies your hunger. It is too cold to quit smoking; smoking keeps you warm. It is too cold to get up early for exercise, a good breakfast, Bible reading, or whatever else is good for you. Never mind get up early - it is too cold to get out of bed at all. There is definitely something to be said in favor of hibernation. Worst of all, it is too soon to even hope for relief. Winter has just unpacked her bags and is settling in for a long, stress-filled visit.
There are occasional cheerful souls who insist on looking at the bright side. They find the cold air healthy and bracing, and delight in the opportunities it brings for sledding, skiing, and ice skating. They remind us of gifts, still tinged with the aura of the love that gave them, waiting for us to change their fresh newness into the comfortableness of the well-used and familiar. Our onlyworn-once, bought-for-the-holiday clothes are waiting in the closet for their turn to go to work and be admired. We can make ourselves adinit along with them that there is good to be found in January, but it doesn't seem to help. The brightest sun-on-snowshiny day still feels gloomy. The gloom is not in the weather. It is in us.
January is Let-Down Month. We have been in a cycle of excitement since September. We have anticipated, prepared for, and lived through an immense variety of events - the new school year, the new TV show season; the social scene with its concerts, dinners, dances, and fund-raising participation events; PTA performances; Halloween costumes; Pilgrim reenactments; sports events from soccer through football into basketball, for every age and skill level; family get-togethers; and the whole tinsel-tinged ambiance of Christmas. Our emotions, our imaginations and our sleep levels have been jerked back and forth in every possible way as we "lived life to the full", moving inexorably onward, upward, toward a cliff called New Year's.
January is what we are left with when we have gone over the cliff and have come back to earth with that echoing thud. It's time to clean up the party - dirty dishes to wash, empty cans to recycle, confetti in the rug, a pile of laundry in the bathroom, a whole house in need of setting to rights after the disruptions of visiting and being visited. Put the pretty things away until next year, if you can figure out what went into which box with what form of packing material. How do you wind those miles of light strings when you can't even get them untangled? How do you get all this work done on top of your regular daily routine, and snow to shovel out of the way besides? In the midst of all this business, why do we feel like something is missing?
Something is missing, that's why. Although it is a vague loss that we can't put our fingers on, it is indeed a loss. We must stop and mourn. The excitement, the anticipation, and the stresses that have been with us so long, are now gone. There is nothing left to anticipate. After all, January is followed by -sigh - February.