January is a cruel month.
Every year it murders my soul and souls around me. It smashes my heart into a bloody mess that my tears only make worse. It falls down on me like at cold, thick January snow. It kills every bud of hope beneath it. The only thing that can give life again is the Sun. The Sun can melt away the colorless, suffocating, slop. The Sun shines and it gives color to things that had been choked of all life. And all the wetness of the thing that had once summoned death is now teaming up with the sun to feed the dying, hungry foliage for a feast that finally gives back life.
Maybe that’s why January consistently kills. Maybe I just need to sit here in my mess, beneath the suffocation, and ponder. Maybe I am like the trees in that if I don’t dye a little each year, a very real death will creep inside of me much faster, and much deadlier.
There is joy in the Springtime. There is warmth and fun in the Summertime. There is a comfort and beauty in Autumn. There is celebration when the holidays come around. But January. January does not belong to any season but it’s own. January teams up with February every year in what seems like an attempt to rot the living.
I must remind myself that it is mere pruning. Once my snow melts, I will feast.
