With all the 'jolly japes' of Christmas now o'er, the junction of one year with the next hoves into focus.

December has its Festival, be we Religious or Not. January portends only poorer weather; the prospect of a similar month of cold and damp (wet, if in Cumbria).

What to do?

My first 'chat' with a clinical psychiatrist, just before she prescribed 40-50 weeks of psychodynamic therapy, included her flagging up an unrequited affection I'd held in a girl throughout university and some years after. Jane.

Was this the seat of my depressions? It was hardly a unique experience, of hankering and yearning (but not crushing or defeating) though it was. I did spend unhealthy periods looking back, dwelling on past brushes with joy, through much of my twenties. Instead of reaching forward, to new, but frighteningly unknown, possibilities. Janus.

And so back here. January. Named after that eponymous two-faced god. We, too, are two-faced, if rather "lesser gods". We have our bright side and our dark side; our summer and our winter coats. Reversible coats (damn; the ideal pressie, if only I'd thought of them in time!)

But are we willing to share what the lining looks like when the weather changes - to MAKE the weather change - instead of always showing the same exterior to those around us, friend or stranger?

Maybe you carry a torch through the dark winter months, for your 'Jane'. Lay it down. If you can. You now have two hands free. Free to grasp new opportunities. Chances that you don't even have to manufacture. Just be free to notice opening up around you.

Look up. Look more than one way. Look backward, yes, occasionally, and with deepest affection. But mainly look forward. To a place unwritten.

Blank pages are scary to a writer. And yet the stuff of what they do. Of life, and not robotic repetition. Become an author. Write your own little story.

Jane is still a friend. Janus, I now see, offers a balanced view. January is a sturdy bridge, simply from the latest chapter to the next.

A Happy New Month to one and all!

Tim

A Moodscope member.