February

There's nothing like the changing of seasons that grounds me to the passage of time. As the world shifts around me, I shift with it. Apart from the obvious bodily changes I adapt to over the course of the year, my spirit relaxes and charges too.

Winters to Summers - I find pleasant warmth in the low sun on chilly mornings. Summers to Monsoons - I find relief in the petrichor filled evenings following the sweltering days. Monsoons to Winters - Everything is damp and cold, and I'd rather just be cold. Each season turns its back on the relief it brought, making way for the next. The life cycle of the earth around me is a stable sinusoidal wave that grounds my own turbulent one. Every morning of daily sun is my own quiet "touch grass" moment. 

Winters to Summers in particular are interesting to me. It's the 'uplifting' time of the year, the rise in the sinusoidal wave. My spirit loosens, I'm filled with relief and the promise of new beginnings. The light returns and promises to stay a little longer each day. It's also easier to drop the ball during these days. The constant effort to keep my spirit vibrating through winters wanes from time to time, because my environment can carry me. 

The trees shed their leaves, filling the streets with crunchy footsteps. More sunlight sneaks through the bare branches. The trees slowly growing new leaves and flowers, colouring the horizon and the streets below. February is the month of new beginnings. The month of love. Also my birthday, which brings its own sense of anticipation and purpose. It signals an opening for a reset in my wave. It's the rise in the year, whose peak is yet to come. I feel emboldened to go out and fail. I'm more curious to try new things and start new projects. I meet different people and go out on dates, text people I don't usually do. I feel active and agile and switch up my training, which doesn't feel like a task anymore.

Winter activities are a chore, the sharp effort-anticipating knuckle cracks before moving. Summer activities are the flexing hold-my-beer knuckle cracks before absolutely killing it. The month of February is the turn. I'm reminded of the song, February Stars by the Foo Fighters. The song is about the feeling of hanging on. As I do. Going into the transition. Feeling the upcoming respite of summer.

Hiding. Healing. Ready to be hurt again.