Normally, January is a quiet month at my job. December and June are veritable hells, March and September roiling purgatories. August and May are tepid bitches. February is a cocktease. There isn't much to say about April, October, or November -- they're wallflowers. But January and July... they used to come as an oasis of calm after their respective hell months. Months where you could go the office and breathe, scheme, plan, maybe even catch up, maybe, maybe,even start to get ahead.
But that's not the case anymore. I'm not entirely sure what happened. During a recession everybody works twice as hard to stay in the same place, certainly. A recession is an economic desert people are forced to march through, and every time someone falls into the dust and doesn't get up, someone still standing is handed their cross to continue carrying.
This January, however, I feel as though I'm bearing the brunt of a thousand optimistic New Year's resolutions; like so many people got up on January 1 determined to work harder, do better, achieve more -- and to reach their goals, of course, they needed that much more out of me. And the demands of their resolutions increasingly make it difficult to maintain my own resolve to keep my head above water. A little for you, a little for you, and a lot for you -- and suddenly there is nothing left for myself.
I like being busy at work, and I relish a day's end where I know I haven't stopped to breathe but I also know I've accomplished a million things. Part of me has always loved the whirling dervish that is corporate life with all its schizophrenic multi-tasking, while part of me knows this Sisyphean life will always, by definition, bring limited satisfaction and stunted achievement.
So, January. Not the lull I was looking forward to; not the respite I needed. For now I guess I'll shore up on immune boosters during the day, down plenty of wine at night, and hope that when July comes around she is still her lazy old self.