I have a problem with January. I really try not to, I try to get into the “new year, new me” bullshit, I try to make plans to be better and be excited about the réveillon, only it all feels artificial. Like I'm putting on a show nobody is paying attention to. I have a problem with January and I think good part of it stems from the fact that, not only me, but my two sisters, my mother and my grandmother all have January birthdays.

I think it could've been worse, at least I get to eat all the cake I can during this month. Except on my mother's birthday, because she always gets a cake flavour I can't stand since I was six and I always eat a single piece only, and forget about it. A bit of a tradition, each passing year. And yet each time, a part of me hopes the cake is anything but. And each time, I'm disappointed again. My mom and I will be like that until the end, I think. I hope she's different, she hopes I'm better. At what, I'm not so sure yet.

For me, I think my life could be measured in Januarys, and if you were to show it back to me, every single year and birthday celebrated within the month, all you could find in common was a feeling of melancholia lingering in the air. January is, for me, a reminder of all the time I'm losing.

My middle sister just turned 16, my youngest 12. What was I doing at 16? Home because of the lockdown, trying to get over my own heartbreak. The week of the lockdown announcement I had plans I can't possibly see myself actually following through with now. I'm glad they didn't happen, but sometimes I wonder. It was the week of one of my friend's birthday, it was the week they promised me a kiss. I still have, tucked away in my room, a gift for them that I (and our friend group) never got to deliver. I keep it safe for memory keeping sake, if not nostalgia, because yes, I've planned to give it away, we're barely friends anymore, that friend group doesn't exist anymore, and still, the small glass jar is untouched above my wardrobe. I don't wonder about it anymore, mostly. About what could've been different. But what were we doing, at 16? Losing time, I guess, same as now.

It's an old habit I can't kick out of my mind for the sake of it. The first movie I watched this year was Mamma mia, with my sister. And god, did I not feel every word of ABBA’s Slipping through my fingers sang by Meryl Streep deep in my bones? I'm dead.

My middle sister wanted to go roller skating for her birthday, so we went. Despite never being an athletic person, or neither of us three having any previous experience before with it. I tried it for the sake of trying, making memories, making her a little bit happier. I didn't last an hour in the track, and I knew I wouldn't, and in the meantime, I somehow fell eight times. It was a good experience, I say to myself, and I'm glad I tried it even though I survived on ibuprofen for the next three days and I now have a bruise on my thigh the size of my palm. Good times.

Whenever I think about killing my inner perfectionist that somehow thought I would be naturally good at things (because otherwise, it's nothing but free humiliation), I never thought I would be hurting so much physically. I'm pretty sure my stomach hates me for it too, the proneness for overthinking and sharp pain of painkillers induced ulcer usually come together. But I think I am stomaching the losses of my dignity a little bit better than I did at sixteen, and I think that still counts for something. I'm nothing if a sore loser (now literally), but I'm learning as I go. Nothing is as embarrassing as the vulgarity of bitterness. If you think somebody is watching you, chances are they're watching themselves through your acts. The opinion of people like that aren't worth it caring about. Would you hear a coward out for advice on bravery? I think it goes the same way.

But I ramble. The point is, I have a problem with January and the passing of time it implies. I have a problem with beginning again, the same way my sister's eyes still light up on her birthday, only to find out most of her friends didn't even bother with a text. My friend,

I want to live though, this year. I want to feel alive and to experience life before my youth goes away. I want to forget, for a moment, about all the time I'm losing as the seconds of my day tick away, as January itself slips through my fingers. I want to live so fully, and so incredibly, that the sound of joy and laughter echoes back in the future and silences the clock in my mind.

This is, of course, mostly a bunch of nonsense rambling, because I'm barely in my twenties, and older people tell me this is just how good like is going to get for me. I pray for it not to be true, I want a life that's more than this. I never believed in keeping mottos, but I think one of mine for this year would be, “I will make a beautiful life for myself, doesn't matter what it takes.” This year, despite the unwavering hate I feel about January, I try to make peace with it, enjoy it despite the hypocrisy of new year's resolutions, despite the feeling of doom. I will believe, this fine morning, that January is not our final day. I will believe life is just beginning as the clock marks midnight on January 31st, and I survive through another birthday. I will be twenty one in less than a ten days. Maybe I'll be wise enough until then to say something better. Or maybe this is as good as it gets.

Either way, I wish you, dear reader, a happy January. If either of us get a good month, let it be you. I have mostly accepted my Januarys are bound to suck a little, and embraced it. Here to birthday blues and the ABBA soundtrack!

love you, juno.