If you’re going to have a bad month, it might as well be February. It’s the shortest and you’re not wasting good weather on a sour mood.
I did not have a bad month. There was a lot of friendship and reading and sticking to healthy routines and watching a ridiculous amount of How to Train Your Dragon. No regrets.
But February carries the ghost of some bad days, mostly tied to past romance. There was Valentine’s day of course. And my ex-husband’s birthday. And yesterday, the anniversary of the day I left my marriage. And I did a biannual check-in with my ex early in the month. All these old burns don’t sting much anymore. Even seeing my ex, though painful, left me feeling more moved on than I ever have.
Yet my scars seem to redden in February without my noticing. I feel weighted and cranky and confused until I acknowledge that this has been a hard time of year for me in the past. My body remembers before I do.
I didn’t understand in the last few years why this season was difficult. I talked to my therapist last year, confused about why my waves of grief had swelled. She reminded me that there had been real trauma for me in the months leading up to my seperation (three years ago now). The winter cues those memories in my subconscious.
I don’t acknowledge this to sink into the ugliness again or give an excuse to how I live my life now. In the past few weeks I’ve felt the sense that I’ve entered a new chapter of myself: one where my pieces are glued back together and I can be instead of heal.
But I can’t forget that there is healing to still be done. In the self-talk to myself and my body. In the itch I feel to have a glass of wine rather than sleep off a moody day. In the reality that no matter how moved on I am when I’m awake, those old characters are casted in my dreams.
February is over. Spring is coming. Next winter will be easier; it is every year. And if it’s not, February is still the shortest month.
With Love,
Natalie