Things I want my kids to know

I never used to mind January. People I knew would tell me that they found it bleak and hard going, but that never used to be a thing for me.

Nowadays, it can be.

I think it is different for each person, but some factors I reckon are in there are:

It’s still really flipping cold and dark but Mariah isn’t on the radio

The end of the year tends to bring holidays, get-togethers and celebrations. For me that is Christmas, and all the stuff that goes along with that: decorations, twinkly lights, absolutely banging tunes (Mariah Carey being the peak, obviously). The nights might be getting darker and it might be cold outside, but in a way that can feel quite nice because we have a reason to celebrate that. We can sit inside with the tree and make the place look fun and festive. We can have a hot chocolate (or a mulled wine).

But now it’s January and the lights are down. It’s still cold and dark but there are no lights to brighten it up, and we aren’t heading for anything in particular. It doesn’t feel like we are building up to something, more like drifting.

I could put Mariah back on, of course, but it’s not the same.

The end of celebrations

Sometimes when we have a really nice time with people that we love, but then we have to go back to work and school and all that jazz, it can feel a bit sad. I never used to get this feeling really, as a teenager or in my early twenties, but now I do.

I think some of that is that if you do have a nice time, the end of that can feel like a reminder that we only get so much of that time. Perhaps we wish for more, or wish we had made more of it previously.

Back to reality

Sometimes having time away, be it a holiday or a bit of time off, then coming back to your every day reality can feel a little flat in comparision.

A long time ahead

For me, this is a biggie. I often feel quite positive at the start of January, but it’s a few weeks in that I am flagging. The run-up to Christmas or the end of the year feels like a few weeks of grim, cold nights, but in January it can feel relentless, like there are so many weeks to get through before we are going to see sunlight properly again.

What we can do

I think the dealing with this period of time well lies in working with it, rather than against it.

Making space for sadness

If you know that you get sad after all the nice times, then maybe rather than hoping it will be different, telling yourself off for it or apologising for it, maybe you work on accepting that it is going to happen and working with that. Maybe you will need to let yourself be a bit sad for a while and take care of yourself while you do. It will pass in the end, but it goes more smoothly when you aren’t angry at yourself while it’s happening.

Having something to look forward to

If you know that you find it bleak at the beginning of the year and that the lack of twinkly lights or something to look forward to or build towards is part of that, then maybe it’s time to manufacture something. For me, I think that’s probably a games night. It isn’t major and it isn’t magic, but for me I think it is the sense of unbroken weeks of darkness and cold that bothers me, so having little lights on the horizon helps.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week,

Ted

P.S. Actually, I'm not only going for the games night. I'm going to get started on a whole games campaign. Now you're talking.