rachel’s blog

January has been at least two months long.

Seriously. It has lasted forever! A week and a half ago I felt like it should be February already… and it’s STILL January! Unbelievable. Rumor has it that tomorrow is the last day of January, but considering how long the month has been already, I’m having trouble believing it. If February ever does decide to show up, I might need to host a January-Is-Finally-Over party or something.

Since January has been extra-long this year, I’ve had plenty of time to come up with theories to explain its perpetual existence. For example, maybe all of the calendar-makers held a secret meeting last year to develop a comprehensive plan to play a mean trick on the world. Or maybe people have been adding extra pages to my calendar when I wasn’t looking. Why couldn’t they add them to June instead? (Side note: yes, I use a pencil and paper to keep track of my life. Anyone want an obsolete antique Palm VIIx that I got for free?) Or perhaps February simply went on strike to prevent January from morphing into February.

It’s not that January has been so terrible… just interminable. Sometimes when life is full the days fly by, but not this month. Each day and each week have stretched out as far as possible… and then some. I spent the first day of January with my family at the end of our Christmas/New Year’s holiday time together, and then I spent the first weekend on a retreat (it was for work, but it was lovely nonetheless). Since then, my life has been jam-packed with all kinds of things — working hard, having friends over for dinner, going to basketball games, enjoying my friends’ babies, playing music for worship on a Steinway concert grand, rejoicing with my friend who started dating a woman he REALLY likes, procrastinating and then doing work for the seminary class I’m taking, singing in a choir again, and getting too little sleep. That’s not an exhaustive list, of course… just an exhausting one.

I mentioned in a previous blog entry that one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to do new things… and I have been. During the past month, I ate at a new Thai restaurant, started a new blog (this one!), bought a tampon out of a machine for the first time (sorry, guys!), and visited a new church. I also started meeting weekly for conversation with a young Korean woman who is learning English. I know, that’s an incredibly exciting list. Stay tuned for next month’s installment…

-sigh-

January has been good, but I can’t say I’m sad to see it go.