A Tale of Two Sister Months #SOL18


December wears sparkles and shimmers,
Deep red lips, sequins and crushed velvet.
She throws her head back in laughter
as she parties all month long.
Her laugh like the jingle of a bell. 
She drinks too much.
Eats too much, 
Spends too much. 
December throws caution to the wind,
lives in the moment,
celebrates everything.

 December's older, more responsible sister,
is January.
January wears beige and gray, and often black.
She wakes up every morning to exercise
And counts every calorie.
Nary a donut passes by January's lips. 
January thinks carefully about the cost 
And rarely spends at all. 
Watching the numbers in her bank account 
Sighing as she pays off December's debts
AGAIN.
She often doesn't feel very celebratory. 
But, that January- she's a do-er. 
When you resolve to be better at everything,
go see January. 
***

I've often thought about December and January as polar opposites. December is a time we let our hair down and relax all our rules about eating, drinking and spending in the quest to make the holidays perfect and fun-filled. January is the time to repent for all the indulgences in December- the bills come in, the scale is up, and everything that was let go to make merry is now waiting, impatiently, for your attention. As I was mulling these ideas the other day, I thought about personifying December and January as sisters, and how opposite they are, as sisters can be. 

 But then I thought, what would December be without January? And what would January be without December? We can't have our whole year filled with indulging and overdoing it, nor can we have our whole year full of restrictions without celebrations. December and January together balance us out- we let loose and then come back to our senses. But the letting loose needs to happen, just as coming back to our senses does too. 

 Now that it's January's turn at the wheel, I'm waving goodbye to December and her chocolates and butter cookies. I'm embracing healthier habits, being more fiscally sound, and looking towards their sister June's arrival. June has sun-streaked hair, wears tank tops and flip flops and ushers in a time of relaxation. June's polar opposite is September, but we aren't going to talk about her right now. 

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