go on and live: my thoughts about december

During the first days of December, I am often in a daze. One that is neither sad nor happy, neither grim nor jubilant. I am simply existing as I do, without giving fate and things like it too much thought. I take a break from watching the world and I feel as though I am sitting on a mountain all to myself. There are no rapid fire thoughts, like trains, traveling to and from my brain. Instead, I only think about the weather and what I will eat for my supper. Once the first days of December pass, I return to a shade of my former self. In this shade though, I cannot see the trees, it is more like a curtain of depression being drawn over my eyes and it spooks me, but it doesn't last for very long. This feeling of shadow comes at the beginning of the first cold snap and drifts in and out like sails on a sea front until one day I suddenly feel okay again. I don't know what prompts it and I don't know why it happens every year around this time, but I've learned to live with it the way one might learn to live with a hole in their shoe. I can still walk. I can still run. I can still go places where I want to be, but I'd much rather patch the hole and not feel the cold air on my feet. Today is one of those days.

I was born in December, so I wonder if this is time's way of saying I have lines on my face I didn't have last year or that tomorrow is ringing a bell and I must go with it. I don't know why sorrow has to come with the snow, but I know myself to be resilient when it comes to overcoming these strange traits that return year after year. "Don't cry because the snow is cold or because a birthday is coming to say another year gone. Go on and live." I say this in my head and sometimes I hear it, other days I shush it, because December is unlike the rest. I dream of many things when the seasonal depression lifts and some of those thoughts include making an album, writing songs for it, getting better at banjo, and finding something in each day that could keep the velvet of a warm heart from turning into threads. I have so many dreams and it would be a shame to not follow them, learn from them, and live with them, because a life without would be barren and boring. You can't row a boat if it has holes in it. You can't swing on life's tail if you're afraid of falling off.

I think this is why being sad in December remains one of the more annoying things to try to overcome. There is endless festivity, stimuli, and people dressed like wreaths saying hello, don't you know this is the season of all seasons. Yes, I want to go to your Christmas party because I love you, but I also want to bake cookies at home and eat them by myself listening to anything but Christmas music. Yes, I want to relish on the year that was, but I also want to know what went wrong on the days that went wrong, how can I learn to be better? 

—

The windowsill has frost on it, the kettle coos, I run over and pour a spoonful of cream and cocoa into the hot milk until steam rises over my face. I trace the lines of the cup across my hands and I wonder what mood the person who invented cocoa and milk was in when they took their first sip. It had to have been in December — maybe they knew how many of us there would be, who longed for the light of springtime but had to survive the winter first.

outfit details: oasap skirt, everything else was thrifted

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