Still January?

January is one hard bitch of a year. We launch it, really, with January the second, since the first is a haze of fatigue and regret, or fogged with the self-pity of a miserable nonevent. And then – that's it. All that we have now to look forward to is Valentine's Day, which is fraught with anxiety if you are single, a test no one can pass if you are dating, and utterly ridiculous if you are married. And then March, cold and wet and stuck as far from the sexy heat of summer or the romantic fall as it can get, and then April. The year finally, I think, gets going in April. But January? It's a put-your-head-down, focus-on-your-own-paper sort of month. I'm already weary.

I had a friend for some twenty-odd years. TWENTY. We were friends for a long time, though I did not, I finally found, know him well. He told me he was too steely and inflexible, that one mistake made by someone and he'd cut that friend out of his life forever. "Really," he said, "I am totally unforgiving. Ruthless." I used to laugh when he told me, because I knew he wasn't kidding. I had seen him cut someone dead, and I wondered what that would feel like, if it ever happened to me.  

And then it did. 

We need a repository for these things, a place to call or email or write down the conversations we can't have with the person we need most. I have one million questions for a relative who died years ago, a person who, it turns out, had a secret life. I want to ask so many questions, hear about how that felt, what was lost. I have a sweetheart of an ex-boyfriend who gets terribly uncomfortable when I contact him, as if even a Facebook posting wishing him a happy birthday is some sort of secret code for "Leave your wife and four children for me!" But every year, I see his favorite old movie repeat on television and I itch to tell him to go tune in. There's a toxic family member I stopped talking to after the last in a line of horrible acts, and I never got to say anything first, and there are some nights when I wish I had. There are all of these one-sided, silent conversations.

It’s been several years since he fired me as his friend, and I visit his blog infrequently, as I don't find much of the real him there. But I still care about him, even if he doesn’t care about me, and I wonder, every six months or so, how he is, so I go and see if he's let any of his real life come through.  I read his blog today, after months of not, to find that his mother died. She was a sweetheart of a woman and she loved him so very much – she lit up whenever he walked into the room. I can't tell him how I loved seeing her face when she spoke to him, and how magical that relationship was, and how much it touched me, and how much he obviously meant to her. I can’t say anything to him. I can’t even tell him how sorry I am, because we're no longer friends, because he doesn’t want me in his life, and I expect it might just bring him pain to get a note from someone he doesn’t like, mentioning her own sorrow for the loss of his mother. But I still grieve for him, it's a rock in my chest. And I have nowhere to put it. 

So, instead, I'm telling you.

Questions for Early In The Year

I make myself an egg white scramble for breakfast most mornings and load it with feta cheese. Then I only eat the areas of egg where I find the greatest concentration of feta cheese. Is this cheating?

Last night, I came across a coffee mug I had not used in years. I placed it on the counter, sincerely thrilled, and exclaimed, "I will drink my coffee from this tomorrow! That will be awesome!" Is this the clearest sign that working from home is perhaps not medically sound?

Do I want to see Black Swan, or would it work just as well to stare into my own eyes in the mirror until I get freaked out?