January-Schmanuary

Oh, funny humans. So obsessed with milestones and new years and the ready-set-go.

We get all excited about stuff, like the fact that the last day of 2023 was 12-31-23, or 123 123, like it meant something. People, the Julian calendar was slammed together by a bunch of self-serving Roman jerks who were so far out of harmony with the great cycles of nature and the movement of the Moon that it is literally a dog’s breakfast of bullshit. 30 days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except poor February, which has 28 unless it has 29, so of course being the shortest month of the year we can let it be Black History Month, because … I mean. Come on.

So the odometer on the calendar of made up time has rolled over again, and everybody is going to the gym tomorrow for about two weeks until it’s just not fitting into their busy schedule. I saw an idea somebody had about a gym that’s a gym for the January, and a wine bar the rest of the year. That is a damn fine business plan, honestly.

I may be extra cranky because I have had a flu I’m calling mini-mono, body aches, joint pain, fever, swollen lymph glands, exhaustion, and occasional nausea. And it won’t let go. I was feeling great until I tried to do things and then I was exhausted for the rest of the day. Another day I tried to do things and ended up spiking a fever and having to go back to bed for a while. So yeah, I’d like to do things, partly because it’s January and partly because I have been intermittently broken for a year and unable to do a lot of things for a long time, but no. Not yet, anyway. But I will.

But the thing is, we just have to start where we’re at, when we can. We can’t wait for the stars to align – they are billions of miles away and even more billions of miles apart, and waiting for them to line up in a particular way would take … well, thousands of years at least. Strike when the iron is hot, as they say. When you feel it, do it. Don’t put it off until … somebody gives you permission, or until your kids are grown, or until you lose or acquire some ephemeral thing that doesn’t really matter.

2023 was another mass exodus year, many of my childhood-teenage heroes gave it up and moved on. It was nearly every day for a while, jeeze. Nothing makes you feel old like half the touchstones of your childhood evaporating in front of your eyes. Damn and blast. Well, we have expiration dates, don’t we?

And that’s the point. Don’t wait until January 1, or until Venus is in line with Neptune or whatever.

I waited to do a lot of things until my mother was dead because I didn’t want to have to argue with her about it – and I really wish I hadn’t done that. Except it doesn’t matter. In a lifetime, in the overall scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. I was where I was, and I started. One way or another, it’s all going to work out. When the spirit moves you, let it happen. Until then, you have permission to be as you are. Nobody is the boss of you but you.

Happy fekkin New Year.