Surveying the Frozen Horizon

As one year ends and another begins, there is the inevitable social discourse that involves questions such as “How were your holidays?”, “Did you have a good New Year?” etc. Niceties that serve less to elicit actual information than to fulfill expected obligations. After being lobbed one of these random and meaningless inquiries, this year I took to volleying back with something along the lines of “Oh fine, but I’m looking forward to the vast social wasteland that is January.” Glib? Probably, but more often than not it garnered a knowing smile, asserting that while festive, a little holiday goes a long way.

But as I actually settle into January, I’m forced to consider what I really meant.

Part of me (the part predisposed to hermitude) knows that I was wistfully envisioning mythical bright winter days spent alternately tromping through snow-covered woods and curled up in front of a fire with my four-footed familiar Dougal. A fabulously false image, about as real as the Emerald City, without the benefit of a poppy field to dull the true drudgery of the journey.

Part of me knows that with the passing of the holidays, my “vast social wasteland” was shorthand for hope that the anxiety and strategic preparation that marked this year’s obligations has passed on for at least a bit and I am offered a reprieve from tense gatherings.

But was I actually more prophetic than glib?

Right now, due to a bit of poor planning mixed with a boatload of bad luck, January finds me (us really, but for these intents and purposes, me) financially f*#@&d and trapped with nothing but time to contemplate how much of a wasteland January (and more than likely February) really might be. And while I haven’t hit rock bottom by any means, every now and then I do catch a glimpse of it in the distance and think “What the hell am I doing?”

So as I stagger through storms that are starting to swirl across my January wasteland, I’m not adopting cute little resolutions like I will lose 10 pounds (which I certainly need) or I will get organized (which is highly unlikely). Instead I am, if not tackling at least pondering the question “What the hell am I doing?” And hopefully if I’m not doing the right thing (which is pretty apparent) this will be the year to change that.

However I am adopting the resolution to give this blogging thing one more go…