You’re still a hot ticket, I tell myself. It’s a Friday night in February. I’m at home wearing stretchy pants and fuzzy slippers.
I don’t care about seeing and being seen downtown in happening trendy spots.
I don’t care about that wonderful classical concert I ought to be attending.
I don’t care about the award-winning indie film people are lining up to see.
I don’t care about sharing expensive artisan cocktails with people I don’t like.
I don’t even care about the dinner parties people I do like have planned without me (was it that tasteless joke I told over tasty high-test margaritas last time? I haven’t been able to drink tequila since. I learned my lesson about tasteless jokes, too).
In short, I’m either clinically depressed (no inveterate extrovert worth her salt exhibits such symptoms) or I’m on the verge of transformative self-actualization.
Then again, it could just be a cold crappy night in endless February.
April is not the cruelest month! Winter does not keep us warm with forgetful snow! Winter turns us all into dried tubers, mushy old apples, and pale leggy houseplants.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind being pale and leggy – one of those striking older women who seems to have led a life of fabulous experience traveling the world or doing important work, who is consequently even more attractive than she was in her twenties.
It’s only in February that I notice that I’m an older woman who has neither traveled the world nor done important work. It’s only in February that I realize I seem to have led the life of a sedentary clerk.
It’s only in February that that bothers me.
You’re still a rock star, I whisper, wrapping up in a favorite blankie. You’ll march into spring with a spring in your step.
A whole of entertainment and literature has conditioned us to only value a life of eventful events. The rest of us are out here existing, doing our thing, finding satisfaction in what is there. This blog is a record of how important small details are to a satisfactory life, and you are obviously not deprived of the tools that make life worth living. A pointed wit, a fluidity with language, a taste for good things, a warm house and family. What else is there? Why grope endlessly outside for what I already know I don’t need.
Thank you, cousin-in-law! Wise words, nice compliments – and you’re right, to boot.
The only way to make it through February is to notice the extra few minutes of sun. And eat a lot of chocolate.
Adult beverages help, too. But you’re right about the sun — a minute more (and change) every day. My 6th grade teacher told us about that, and it has stayed with me ever since. Thank you, Marcella Howes!
You might enjoy(!) the song “February” by Dar Williams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDgOc3gMtFk
:-)
At least it’s sunny most of the winter here. I spent some winters in Washington state (not the pretty part). It was endlessly cloudy. The winter I had a house to take care of, it snowed in October and didn’t melt off until March. The lawn was moldy underneath. We alternate bitter cold with mud season, but at least we get to go out on those sunny days and take in the splendor of the Rocky Mountains.
Right you are! After Son #1 was born, we spent two winters back in the northeast. Returned to Colorado with a song in our hearts, despite missing family terribly. That 300+ days of sunshine thing becomes a necessity, once you’ve experienced it :-)