a rocky start.

The pressure doesn't exactly halt with the holidays, does it? It lingers after Christmas with returns to be made, leftovers to be eaten before they've gone bad, flights to catch and suitcases to pack and unpack. Which is why I understand the enthusiasm for celebrating an impending new year:

putting your mistakes/past behind you

promising resolutions

cleaning up, purging old items, making room for new

a fresh new month. the first month of the year

The holiday we've created on the eve of this new month has always been a hyped up excuse to wear sequins, where I tell myself each time it rolls around that I will stay inside and drink a bottle of champagne to myself, cook a delicious dinner, and watch Jenny McCarthy makeout with a sailor in front of the ball dropping into two thousand and...

But, it never really plays out like that. I get suckered into going out, hopeful it might actually prove to be a night for the twenty-something history books. 

This year was no different than years past. What's been irking me over the past 16 days of January, however, is not my lack of enthusiasm for New Years Eve. It's that 2013 feels like a masked version of 2012; colder and slightly more bitter. I feel like there are more people in the city, on the streets and invading my commute than there were during the holidays. I'm harshly reminded that getting to work requires almost an hour tunneling underground. There's a flu epidemic going on up here that I feared I caught, the subways and sidewalks offering no haven for staying germ-free. Congested, exhausted, vitamin D-deprived; this is what I've come to collect after checking out for a few weeks in Florida.

As you can tell, I'm doing really well with my resolution of not to complain.

Mid-month, I'm starting to see the light. Back into the swing of things at work. My room on the fifth floor doesn't feel so foreign. I never had the flu, probably scored one of the last flu shots available in New York, and kicked this cold I've been battling for a week. Got some pep in my step as I face the cold on the way to work. Some banana bread just came out of the oven and I plan on taking the loaf on a ski trip this weekend to a state that I have never been to. I even have some more trips lined up this year that I am excited to experience and share here. 

While I may not be an optimist, I've learned not to expect so much from the start a new year. Change is hard. Sometimes - plain movement is hard. But as my Grandfather likes to say, "You can't stop the clock," and thank goodness you can't. Otherwise I'd be stuck in 2012 without all this to look forward to.  

A delicious mess: mashed banana batter, walnuts, strawberries.