January

30 days has September, April, June, and November, all the rest have 31, except for January which has about seven hundred when will this miserable month end.

January and February both always feel like drug-out months that will never end. This particular January has not been too bad, but it still appears we have been in this month for years and years and February will never come.

I firmly believe time is not linear, but fluid. Some periods of time appear as if they are stuck forever and ever and will never budge. Middle-of-the-night wake-ups from children that strike night after night. Laundry piles that never shrink. Dreary grey January skies that stretch into eternity.

One of my goals for the year is to find and celebrate small joys. Patches of sunlight that stream through the clouds. Children whose heads nestle perfectly into your body. The drifting aroma of roasted coffee beans as the sun rises in the morning.

But one of my wise friends reminded me that joy is not only found in these moments, but joy can be found in all moments if we try hard enough. The middle-of-the-night wake-ups that give us a chance to snuggle with our precious children in an eerily silent house. The rhythmic satisfaction of folding warm laundry. And the beauty found in the desolate, empty grey January skies that showcases the shape of the world when all extraneous baggage is stripped away.

I hope that January ends soon. But I also hope you can find and celebrate the joy this bleak month can create.