The worst day of the year

For me, it is today! Maybe for others it was yesterday, their wedding date or the last day of summer holidays. Variety is the spice of life, they say. Well, Christmas holidays have melted like a snowman at the sun of August (in Spain) and we have nothing to hope for.

Yes, you will tell me that we are half in the middle of the academic year, that summer is half way, that there is a ray of light in the midst of January mist, but it is not enough.

People have a lot of good intentions when the year breaks: a good deal of gym torture, re-starting (one more time and it’s the twenty-second time) that rusty English of you –I’m doing it as well, I confess–, giving up horrible vices such as smoking, devouring cakes or criticizing your mother-in-law, taking life seriously, saving some money, avoiding those terrible drunk times with their corresponding hangovers... the list is almost infinite.

I don’t believe about this reset of life. Not now, at least. The commencement of a new year is only a mark in the calendar and a lot of nonsense celebrating that we have overpassed another change of digits –I meant figures, not amputation and reimplantation of fingers–. Things really happen when academic years start again. That is September, the month where everything is new. You come from a long –or short vacation–, even fed up of vegetative contemplation of non practical routines, waiting for something that may indeed change your future. Mankind expectations are made up of dreams and illusory constructions, being only a small part those that will actually come true, sometimes in a completely unexpected way, or to a diminished fulfilment from the predicted result.  

In Autumn you see clearer, the air is still warm, and the harshness of cruel winter is far. There’s time to prepare for its rawness. Now it’s high time for projects and daydreaming. This is more clearly seen in school life. For students, the starting point is always the beginning of a new challenge: brand new mates, teachers, subjects, decisions, habits... For workers, some of the most paramount modifications appear after the summer, although not always. In any case, more and more enterprises tend to big changes when June is over and not with the natural fall of the year –another hint of true conclusion of a whole period.

In January, few features have been altered. Experiments, with coca cola. If the company must swap posts, reorganize departments or reconsider further instructions, they will wait for six more months. For the time being, definite decisions may be reached depending on the final performance of the pieces on the chessboard, but only to be communicated on the edge of vacations. Thus, a forced retirement will be well assumed and new responsibilities, too. In the end, living is going up and down storeys of a big building in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by everything. Which floor are you going to?