The trees are bare, it’s too cold to wear shorts or short-sleeved shirts, and the idea of a cold beer makes me shudder. Can you believe we are mid-November already? 2024 seems to have mysteriously evaporated into thin air without bothering to give anybody know the courtesy of a fair warning. At least that’s how I feel, not to mention that just when I got used to writing 2024 everywhere I now have to wrap my mind round 2025. I know I’m not the only one struggling with this either because I’ve recently come across several advertisements for January 2025 but the writer still wrote 2024. In fact, in a recent conversation I had, 2026 was already mentioned, and I had to pause and reflect on the fact that in 2026 I will be joining the ranks of those to graduated High School 40 years ago. Some of you will already be confronting this next year already!
Last weekend I had my 1980s playlist blasting through the house while cleaning, and it occurred to me that anyone passing by might be wondering what old fuddy-duddy lives in that house playing ancient music. I cringe at that thought that this is exactly how I felt when my parents played the music of their youth (the 1950s) when I was in High School! There I was, dancing to Bruce Springteen’s Glory Days (1984) and Billy Joel’s We Din’t Start The Fire (1989) without a care in the world and the young neighbour took his car out of the garage with some current tune that I didn’t recognise. Geez.
I don’t know about you but I’ve always found November to be a peculiar month. We’re not quite out of autumn yet but the temperatures take a serious dip already that necessitate the dragging out of the winter wardrobe. My summer clothes have long been replaced by fleece jackets and warm socks, and ice-cold drinks with large mugs of tea, coffee and soups. Somehow, once Halloween rolls away with the hollow pumpkins, we get caught up with a whirlwind of events and holidays, and our budgets never seem to be as stretched out any other time of the years as during the period between Thanksgiving and the weekend before Christmas. Between gifts, parties, travels, and decorations, we are all at our wits end and strangely enough, no matter how much we manifest it, money never seems to grow on trees!
When I was still a student, November was panic season because whatever procrastination you did between the beginning of the semester until now, that ominous December deadline is arriving sooner than you desire. Projects, term papers, thesis, exams, all roll into one horrible tangled mess. It doesn’t get any better once you join the workforce either, because you basically sentence the current year to death during November and stuff January, February and March of the incoming year with appointments, meetings and conferences. Looking ahead has never felt scarier than in November, because this is the month where you ask yourself Have I done enough? Did I forget anything? Have I overlooked anyone? And if the the answer is yes to the last two questions, then feel free to press that panic button. Remember the person you had a meeting with back in February and agreed to talk to again in April and somehow life got in the way? Well, time to draft that apology email and craftily slide in a “happy holidays” line.
FrogDiva Thoughts 