january me is done school. january me is a job seeker, a job hunter, the most serene thrill seeker. she goes down damp, winding metal slides by herself. she bikes around governor’s island and fears sunset on dreary, wet days. she asks the winter village assistant for directions, recommendations. she climbs to the lookout point by herself where she can see manhattan, the chains art installation, the industrial park to her left. she makes steamed eggs for the first time and it comes out perfectly glassy. she buys 8 ounces of a filet mignon from the same place she bought her first one in new york that the boy made for her. she bikes through a mild january, she hunts for glossier products at TJ maxx, she meanders around target, she helps lost tourists navigate the subway.
she waits and makes the new boy set up a date. she runs multiple times a week. she tries a new cafe and decides $15 for an egg sandwich and oat milk cappuccino is too expensive and she won’t get it again. january me indulges in aperol spritzes whenever she encounters them. she buys broadway tickets. she is still very careful with how she spends money — the broadway ticket is her only indulgence. she regrets things she shouldn’t. january me is very hard on herself, something she hasn’t shed from february me, a self-lacerating perfectionist who felt guilty about embarking on a spring break trip to miami. she makes the call to neiman marcus about why her skirt hasn’t been delivered and they give her a refund. she’s thinner than october me, who is thinner than september me, who is thinner than august me, and july me, and june me, and may me. and we could go on and on.
january me still writes a lot, both through her keyboard and on pen and paper. january me starts selling things on poshmark. january me reflects, reflects, reflects. january me has done all the work and she is at the last step, the hardest step. january me must confront self-validation or her lack of it. she hasn’t moved on –yet. she’s stuck at the impasse. she has checked off every box but that one: to accept the boy for who he is, not who she wanted him to be. she must realize that letting go requires loving oneself, and ah yes, the same problems that plagued her 10 years ago have arisen again. the concept of self-esteem, of being good enough for herself, has come back to haunt her. it’s a cycle and she hasn’t healed, and the Incident only highlighted it, ripped her a new one. here she is trying to heal by herself.
january me has been bedridden more than she has not been. january me has been very depressed and she can’t tell if it’s from hormones or what she has endured over the past several months. january me is not less sad than august or september or october or november me, she is sad in a different way. it’s hard to compare these sadnesses, these different strains of yearning and betrayal for their composition is different altogether. each one is an accretion of each other, there’s tug and push. new compounds were created from the old parts mixing together. january me is wiser, sure, because she’s spent more time dwelling on everything. but has she learned about herself and what she must do, that is the question. she has certainly learned more about the boy’s character, his disposition, now she is an expert on the boy and it helps no one, certainly not her in her own healing.
january me needs to learn to love herself. she does not know how to do that. it’s not like riding a bike because she has never even gotten on this type of contraption, even stationary. loving herself is not indulging in experiences, going to Governor’s Island, browsing Target, reading fiction, texting friends and calling them. No, no. she must not confuse that for self-love or self-care. Those things are mere distractions, endeavors to delay what she must do next, which is admittedly very hard. January me must internalize that she doesn’t need external validation of her worth, that she can’t be so hard on herself because then she will never let this senseless betrayal go. the betrayal makes no sense and the truth to be derived from it is that there is no more parsing that she must do. she just needs to accept it as senseless, that it didn’t happen because it was a reflection of her self-worth. what others do to her is not a reflection of whether she is enough. she must stop wishing that she would matter to someone who can’t love anyone, not even themselves. she has nothing to prove to this person and she must stop desiring to do it. she must stop trying to find external things to prove that she mattered to him, because those signs will never make her full, they will never be enough, because they were never meant to be used in that manner.
January me must accept that moving on and letting go is hard only because a core tenet of this act means understanding your self-worth. That she is worth a lot, that she’s enough, that she matters, and mattering to someone is not the same thing as mattering overall. Knowing january me is a privilege, spending time with january me is fulfilling and illuminating. january me surrounds herself with good people, she is weary and minimizes her time with people who don’t appreciate her for how she should be appreciated. January me must understand, embrace, accept, celebrate, cherish the fact that she is good enough. Otherwise she will never get over this ordeal, she will stay in purgatory, somewhere she’s settled in as home for at least five months and counting (and much longer, let’s be real!).
january me can take baby steps, that’s fine, but she must take steps in the right direction.
tenminutethoughts 