Thoughts on January

So here we are. I could tell you that I have been thinking about all manner of things, most of them inconsequential, but some bigger. I could tell you that I have been thinking a lot about writing and especially writing as a profession. It's been a long time since I wanted to write anything with a consistent sense of intention. I have been dilly-dallying around the edges wracked with the kind of self-doubt that goes bone-deep. I tell people at parties that I couldn't get my book published and they give me the sad face tilt and I wonder what they are really thinking. Have I become one of those people who write but then don't do anything with it? I see so much commentary about other people's writing intentions, (look! I have a hundred thousand followers on Substack!) I wonder what my intentions are. Will 2025 will be the year of not worrying what other people think?

I have decided to simply write more. That way I might get clear. And if you like what I write then all the better. I dipped a toe into fiction again and it came out pretty dark, which is what happened the last time I wrote fiction. For me, fiction means I can say anything, whereas memoir holds itself accountable in a distinctly different way. I hope you are all still on board.

January is cold and long and if ever there were a time when I feel very dour and British, this is it. I am recovering from Christmas; it's taken me a few weeks to calm all of that down in my mind. And now there is me, myself and I. My children have gone to visit their Dad and his wife and I have this strange in-between time where I feel their absence acutely. I know when they fly home he will message me and say how great our kids are and I will reply and say yes. I know that already. He will be remembering what he left behind. It will be the same bittersweet exchange that characterises much of our contact. A sort of oops-y-daisy we really fucked it vibe. Probably better off that way and as I stay at my partner's house and lay in his bed reading 'A Room with a View' by E M Forster, I feel peaceful and like I have found the bed I was meant to lay in. It took time but I am there.

I am trying - like everyone else - to look after myself. I read that every time you carry out an act of self-care, you are keeping a promise to yourself and I am starting to think that is true. I am eating well, barely drinking wine, walking a lot, sleeping a lot, slathering my skin with balms and oils. It all makes sense and frustratingly it seems to work, in that I am starting to feel like myself again, having existed like some sort of interloper for months. Winter really does not agree with me. I want to run away to the sun but following the aborted efforts of last year - cancelled trips and my misreading of my own objectives - I am forcing myself to stay put. I think this is what they call sitting with your feelings. My feelings and I are sitting still. Yoga twice a week. Walk a bit more. Write a journal. Sigh.

Nonetheless, I want to buy an afghan coat with a fur collar and gad about like I am Stevie Nicks, circa 1982. I would like to have some of those MiuMiu boat shoes that were highly covetable just a micro-trend or two back but cost about £800. I would like to dress like Christy Turlington in the 1990's Ralph Lauren catwalk shows. I would like to have better posture. I wish I had the life to wear the clothes I want to wear. I wish I would have kept some of my wardrobe from my teens; that vintage washed-soft chambray shirt would have gone down a treat now.

At the weekend, I terrorised a few more middle-aged men. It has become a habit but one I feel I could capitalise on. It provides the best writing material and helps me see what I have learned. Notwithstanding, at times it feels unkind as these men I meet seem so guileless. Maybe it is because of my town's proximity to London? They were just in the pub minding their own business and they end up with me. They can't work out why they got divorced. Their ex-wife baffles them. Their new girlfriend baffles them. Their daughter baffles them. I feel like I could give them a roadmap. These conversations are almost formulaic. My partner stands by amused; he knows how my mind is working. I wonder if I baffle him but then know I don't. To him, I am an open book.

As is the way in January I try to concentrate on under-consumption. It is a no-buy month. In an act of financial responsibility, I daily make what are called 'snowflake' payments to my bulging Christmas credit card debt. I learned about snowflake payments on TikTok. I watch in horror as TikTok is taken away then given back to the Americans like they are a pack of unruly kids borne to inconsistently disciplinarian parents. What a storm in a world domination teacup. And yet, I scroll and scroll.

I am thinking a lot about friendship and how much or little I have invested in it. I realise my prickly exterior over recent years has probably made it hard for women to be close to me. This dawned on me as I read 'Let Them Theory' by Mel Robbins which is annoyingly accurate in its descriptions of female friendships in midlife. Go through a big life event? Lose a load of friends. It is the way and I can see that was no one's fault really, just the path we are all on. I bumped into an old school friend in the gynaecologist's office (of all places). This is where middle aged women hang out. We made eye contact before realising we had known each other over thirty years ago. In fact I think one of the last times I saw her was the morning that we had discovered Princess Diana had died. My ex-husband and I had, at that time, a three-storey house and she had come to stay with her then-boyfriend. We were playing at being grown ups in this house and must have been about 24. They were both training to be architects. We were unmarried and spent our weekends trying to master wallpapering or gardening or damp-proof treating. Your first house is like that; suddenly DIY is your thing. Anyway, as I was called for my appointment in the busy waiting room (who knew gynaecologists were so in demand?) she said;

'Louise! It's Juliet!'

And I looked at her and realised who she was. There was a time pressure; I had to go and discuss my HRT and she had to do whatever she had to do. The elderly ladies around us looked up from those wipe-clean seats they have in medical waiting rooms. The moment passed. I had to just leave her there, with our past behind us in the air like a speech bubble.

I recall being in another kind of clinic waiting room years back, a sexual health one in a different hospital. There were two young sex-workers discussing their punters and I shamelessly eavesdropped. Then a teacher from my son's school came in and sat down and she and I exchanged looks but did not say we knew each other. The last time I had spoken to her was at his parent's evening. On this occasion I was there for my reasons and she for hers. A man sat sandwiched between us and all of the women in the room secretly wondered what was the matter with his willy. There was simply no reason for a man to be there other than the worst; a symptomatic penis. Whereas for the women it could have been a whole host of possibilities. Oh the joys.

Still, January labours on and I with it.

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash