February

[ladysprite]

February isn't a month, exactly. It isn't a time, a chunk of the calendar that just happens to fall at a certain point between the heart of winter and the first lying lover's promise of spring. It's an adjective, and a curse, and a state of mind. It's gray, if gray were a verb. It's coldness that moves beyond your toes and into the bones of your feet and around your shoulders so that even after you're warm, you still can't quite remember to uncurl and straighten your spine and breathe deep. It's forgetting that there are colors in the world that haven't had all of the life and vibrancy leached out of them by an eternity of days without sun. It's hearing the word 'delight' and not being able to remember what it means.

I wish I knew what I want right now. When I'm at work, I'm tired and miserable and drained, and can't imagine anything that I want more than to spend an entire day at home, curled up under a warm blanket with a pot of tea and my cats and a favorite book, one whose words and ins and outs I know as well as the patterns of thoughts in my own mind.

And when I have a day off, and have the potential to do that, I feel lost and stranded and alone, and when I try to read the words aren't right and the story doesn't flow and the words don't mean anything. And when I try to take the time to unplug and unwind, the minutes stretch into hours and the emptiness of them swallows me up with the enormity of everything I'm not doing and everyone I'm not doing it with.

So I seek out people, and find ways to fill my time and space with doing stuff. Anything. Moving, acting, talking, being useful and productive and accomplishing whatever I can. Except once I'm there, the presence of other people is like a stone in my shoe, keeping me from being comfortable, keeping anything from flowing smoothly, and I can't relax and everything seems painful and irritating and all I want is to be home alone.

I think I have Restless Mind Syndrome. It is so damn february here it hurts.

Comments

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

I hope you can find some peace soon.

[wren13.livejournal.com]

Ah, you just need a winter thaw to warm you up. I always look forward to February because we invariably have a weekend in the 60's when I can dress in a bathing suit and clean the hot tub, just in time for 3 more months of winter (being a pessimist).

Hugs, sweetie.

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

That first paragraph is the best description I've ever heard of my entire winter. I hope you feel better soon.

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

*hugs* You have my sympathies, 'cause I've been there and I know exactly how you feel.

There was more than one reason I moved back to the Golden State. meiczyslaw was a big one, but February figured in there pretty strongly, too.

[aries-walker.livejournal.com]

There are Februaries, but they are always always always followed by a nice March. You're over halfway there.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Spring IS coming.

[mermaidlady]

"The only bubble in the flat champagne of February is Valentine's Day. It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine's Day on February's shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed." --Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

[pagawne.livejournal.com]

March will eventually get here, then April. Just hang in there. I am down to toenails and fingernails for hanging on. I want the s*&^ to GO AWAY!

[98.livejournal.com]

It is so damn february here it hurts.

Too perfect a description. Of the winter months February has ever been my least favorite. It always seems to be the coldest and greyest and most immune to hot chocolate.

Forgive me if I have mentioned it before but hangling little Christmas lights indoors around the windows seems to help us. Against the morning dark they can be quite bright and are somehow more cheering than simply turning on the bedroom's lights.