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January's a bit of a shit month, I think. I tend to think of it as December's hangover for most people - they've been up on Christmas, and New Year's Eve was a 'thing', and literally a bunch of people are hungover on January 1st - an apt start. But winter isn't suddenly over. Bereft of the capital high, red and green wreaths and streamers, we're left with the reality of two more months of winter. Break time and vacations give way to work-a-day reality, and the people who still have lights up really only have them up because it's too cold and dangerous to take them down. They're suddenly out of place - like the cheap decorations of students who don't have money or taste for more elaborate amenities.
That's okay, it happens every year. January is actually a bit of a relief for me. I've said that I don't like Christmas, and I guess I don't, but I actually really want to. My serious dislike comes from having done the retail gig in various forms for quite a while, and when that's the case, one really gets to see how nasty people can get around and about the holidays. That, and the factory music piped in on repeat that workers get subjected to. The other thing is personal - it's seeing the commercial nature, the cardboard and plastic facade of a real holiday taped cheaply to the front of a real thing of substance and realizing that it really wasn't better when I was a kid, I was just off of school and getting a lot of stuff. As a kid, I did love stuff, though you would be hard pressed to get me to admit it. I really loved getting time off school though, getting to play video games and read, and to eat pretty much endlessly. The difference between winter and summer breaks was that winter was explicitly a vacation, and there wasn't really anything I could reasonably do, so everyone just left me to waste my time for once.
As for me, now, I've had my vacation. I've got a week left, but I actually need to spend it working, and I feel pretty good about it. I really needed the time off. It took a while to actually let myself rest, to realize that the work I'd done was good but it wore me out, and I wasn't prepaired for it the way I needed to be in the first place. For several days, I pretty much just did nothing and I followed that up with errands, chores, house cleaning, and cat care. For the next week, I won't be putting in the same length of days I was at the tail end of the semester, so even just 6-8 hour days will seem to be part-time. Feeling pretty good about that.
That's okay, it happens every year. January is actually a bit of a relief for me. I've said that I don't like Christmas, and I guess I don't, but I actually really want to. My serious dislike comes from having done the retail gig in various forms for quite a while, and when that's the case, one really gets to see how nasty people can get around and about the holidays. That, and the factory music piped in on repeat that workers get subjected to. The other thing is personal - it's seeing the commercial nature, the cardboard and plastic facade of a real holiday taped cheaply to the front of a real thing of substance and realizing that it really wasn't better when I was a kid, I was just off of school and getting a lot of stuff. As a kid, I did love stuff, though you would be hard pressed to get me to admit it. I really loved getting time off school though, getting to play video games and read, and to eat pretty much endlessly. The difference between winter and summer breaks was that winter was explicitly a vacation, and there wasn't really anything I could reasonably do, so everyone just left me to waste my time for once.
As for me, now, I've had my vacation. I've got a week left, but I actually need to spend it working, and I feel pretty good about it. I really needed the time off. It took a while to actually let myself rest, to realize that the work I'd done was good but it wore me out, and I wasn't prepaired for it the way I needed to be in the first place. For several days, I pretty much just did nothing and I followed that up with errands, chores, house cleaning, and cat care. For the next week, I won't be putting in the same length of days I was at the tail end of the semester, so even just 6-8 hour days will seem to be part-time. Feeling pretty good about that.