First, let me wish you a long-overdue Happy New Year!
Or maybe a more realistic aspiration is a happ-ier new year.
Or maybe just a happy-ish new year…
Truth is, two weeks into 2022, I haven’t exactly been feeling all that new-year, new-you-ish lately. Maybe I’m just being cautiously optimistic (or downright pessimistic) after the big, bold, booming Farewell to 2020 turned into the bust that was 2021. Or maybe it’s that, after months and months of remote-work sameness, it could actually still be 2020, for all I can tell.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s January itself.
I was oddly comforted to see this post by my college friend Jenn:
It really captures the tension that I’m feeling between wanting to capitalize on the new year — to set new goals, establish new routines, banish old habits — and wanting to finally invest in a set of hoodie-footie pajamas and one of those La-Z-Boys with a built-in cooler and nacho tray.
This is supposed to be a time for new resolutions and big, healthy resets. And yet… Meh.
I recently saw a comedy special by Jack Whitehall that gives a unique (and, fair warning: somewhat salty) take on this very issue:
“Smackuary” may be a bit too far, but I do think we need a calendar makeover. After all, who the heck decided to put New Years at the absolute worst time of the year? Days are short and freezing. Nights are long and boring… kinda makes it tough to find the gumption to run out and join a spin class.
Admittedly, there’s something nice about starting a new year right after the winter solstice. Around Dec 21, when you’re on your way to work, wondering why the sun won’t just get up and rise already, there’s at least the cold comfort that it will only get better from here. Days will begin to get longer, even if winter — and its three months of snowy, icy, blustery weather — has just begun. I suppose that’s a new beginning of sorts….
the postponement
I’ve always said that we should really move New Year’s Day to the springtime. You know, flowers pushing their way up through the soil, trees coming into leaf, animals emerging from their slumber… in the words of George Costanza, “Rejuvenation! Rebirth! Everything's blooming! All that crap!”
You know who agreed with George? The Ancient Romans, the ones who invented our calendar. According to History.com the year originally began on the vernal equinox, and lasted 10 months, or 304 days. That worked ok, but didn’t synchronize well with the whole earth-around-the-sun thing, so Julius Caesar (of salad fame) did some tweaking and added a couple of months — including the one dedicated especially to that two-faced so-and-so, the god Janus. He decided that the new year would begin with the Feast of Janus on January 1st — a time to look back on the past, and forward to the future.
So I guess it makes sense, when you put it that way. But I’ve also decided that I’m not going to feel bad about my own two-facedness this month: the one guy who wants to blast the Rocky theme and go out for a workout (or, more accurately, who wants to want to work out), and the other who wants to binge-watch Emily in Paris and snack on pork rinds. (Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.)
In the end, it’s a time for contradictions. I say we all resolve to do the best we can, give ourselves what we need, stop beating ourselves up, and just roll with it.
If we're admitting publicly that we're going to watch season two of Emily in Paris (implying we may have binged season one back in the day), then I guess that's what's happening here too. Great post, David. Couldn't relate more!!