With February knocking on the door rather urgently, I have only just realised that already a month has been gone from this more or less, ‘new year’. Winter seems to be packing up along with it, as each day is starting to feel warmer than the one before, and it’s weird how times seem to have passed in a glimpse for me. It feels like only a second ago, I was standing on my balcony, looking at the fireworks lighting up the skies like supernovas. And now, I’m in my room, contemplating whether I should put away the warmer stacks of clothes I have, wondering how I managed to erase a whole month from my memory.
January seems muted around the edges in my mind. Unlike how it’s typically seen as the shiny new start to something new for most people, to me, it has always felt exhausting. There’s just, too much to do in January. Too much to clean, too much to organise, too much to work around. So it’s not surprising that my mind decided to sweep the month under the rug, making me forget what I had done altogether. Knowing me, I probably worked like a robot most days, and slept like a drunkard on the rest. It’s not uncommon for me to go on weeks without seeing the faces of my friends. So maybe January had been lonely for me. Or maybe, I had managed to meet some of them, and then decided there was nothing memorable about the meeting.
I think it’s a thing that happens with age. Or it’s something that happens because of depression. I can’t really tell the two apart anymore. Because as it is, I’m not getting any younger, and the thought alone is enough to make me crawl into my bed and stay there for an eternity.
It’s not the fear of getting old that gets to me. It’s more the fear of what lies next in line. I surely know I’ll rock the whole faded grey hair more than most of them out there. But what I certainly won’t rock are the responsibilities that come along with it. I’m not going to stay a student forever. And soon enough, I know I’d have to open my eyes and see the bells ringing, alerting me that my time is finally up.
I’m not sure what lies for me from there on. As I’ve got zero plans for jobs and whatnot. I love the subject I’m studying well enough, but even the thought of sitting at a desk five times a week from five to nine, makes me nauseous. Although, I know that at the end of the line, that is what awaits me. Because philosophy can’t really keep my stomach full, and, money is something you need to work hard for.
It is rather inconvenient that I wasn’t born around the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Back then, desk jobs were for the elites, and for a nobody like me, earning living would’ve been something close to getting my hands dirty from working at a firm somewhere, and I would’ve been all but fine with it. Because nature isn’t something I need to pursue and flatter to get the result. She just needs a little love, and long days under the sun. Which, sounds right about the perfect thing for me.
But instead of watering fields, I’m resigned to watering the dying plant on my balcony, staring at miles and miles of concrete that block my view of the sky.
Hence, I mute my Januaries and don’t look forward to Februaries.
What good is spring when there aren’t any flowers left to bloom anyway?
