January blues

There's something about this time of year that gets me down. Somehow, I'm depressed at this time of the year - starting around Christmas and lasts till maybe the end of February. Well, for these three years running, at least.

2007, it's pretty obvious what I was depressed about - my 4-year relationship with K was ending-then-ended.

But last year and this year, I'm not sure what I am and was really depressed about. They both started right about when I got back from a trip to my sister's. Withdrawal after spending time with them? Sudden loneliness?

Maybe it's because work pretty much grinds to a halt during this season, and since being busy makes me happy, perhaps the converse is true too. Maybe Í'm too free.

Maybe it's also partly because I cancelled a trip to Bangkok that I'd really been looking forward to, at great cost to time with treasured friends and to my pocket.

Maybe it's also partly because Joy has recently moved to Hong Kong, and I'm also contemplating the possibility that Winds' audition will be successful and he'll up and go too in the near future. How many of my dearest friends are going to be far away in time? Lian is already far away, not geographically, but has drifted away over the past year.

I always search for deeper reasons why I'm down during this season. This nauseating, Hallmark- and Bee Cheng Hiang-dominated season where, in shopping malls and public places, icky Christmas tunes transition into the grating cacophony of Chinese New Year music and garish decorations assault your eyes everywhere you go. Presents and ang baos are never enough to justify these commercially-lucrative jokes where the true celebrations are in retailers' pockets.

Erm, I digress.

Waiting for change. Waiting for new and better things to come. Why does my life always seem to move only in the second half of the Gregorian calendar? Why can't I shake off this smothering don't-feel-like-doing-anything doldrum? Can barely bring myself to lift my ass out of bed each day. Can barely persuade myself to go to sleep each night when I realise in horror what time I've stayed up to.

This sounds so self-pitying.

In spite of myself, I must say that companionship sounds like a mightily nice option right now. Not necessarily a relationship, just companionship.

The only people who have showered me with hugs and kisses lately were all under the age of 6. Well, actually I get hugs in plentiful supply from my dear friends, but there's something intoxicating about affection that's given randomly and without apparent purpose, and yet purposeful, in the way only children and lovers can give.

Someone please hire me to write something other than my blog.