Every December, I Fall In Love – Frightfully And Wholeheartedly

About falling in and out of love with the most diabolical month of the year.

Every December, I fall in love.

Frightfully and wholeheartedly. With the most fiendish month of the year.

But, it is always love at first regret.

December is the thorny noiselessness in a room right after a movie ends. It is the end of the year, and you are lured in with splashy Facebook memories and immodest Amazon sales...until it hits you.

What were you up to all year?

Last December, you had heartily resolved to make this one a better year.

You had promised to let loose the eager beaver in you, and cross at least two things off your bucket list. You had also looked your beer mug in the eye and promised that you two would see less of each other this year.

This December, as you cavort with new promises you seek to keep next year, your beer mug still holds your sheepish gaze.

Incidentally, the self-reflexive bouts hit you the hardest when you’re tete-a-teting with your bottle of liquid courage.

And December brings with it its own share of realisations. Its own sense of finality. Another year has gone by without you having moved your nether end much to hit the gymnasium. Or the jogger’s lane.

The gym membership is now an abandoned relic, preserved for purposes of tattered self-assurance. Those abs you promised yourself last December are, at best, hidden underneath the nourished layers of flab. But that’s okay, there is always another year to bank on.

Your savings account, on the other hand, has been steadily coughing up its fast-depleting reserves. You have avoided the numbers for 12 months now. But it is time. Thank the god of small things for zero-balance accounts.

But, it doesn’t stop there. There is absolutely no respite. The cobwebs sheltering the ‘Spam’ folder in your ‘Inbox’ have suddenly cleared. The unopened mails from the HR department look like thunderous grey clouds, rearing to go. The final mail from the HR department is the ticking bomb that no apology can detonate. You immediately take a resolution to come on time every day, next year.

Every December, you pledge to chase that-which-cannot-be-articulated. ‘Love’ has always been that endless black hole you willingly get sucked in. Strangely, when you try to boil down to one particular face, you can only think of moments... a lowered head that unwillingly gushed at the sight of you, the half-cooked smile across the coffee-shop, the averted gaze that kept stealing glances, the tilt of the head that shared a secret with you... the gestures remain fresh and unforgotten.

Maybe, next year, when you fall in love again, you can conjure up a face.

That’s the charm December holds. There is always the next one to look forward to. The next one to move your resolutions to.

November stretches its arms with pronounced reluctance and December takes over, wearing a smile armed with revelations, a gaze full of promises. You feel an unfurling inside you, and fall hopelessly in love.

What would January be without December? What magnetic hold would the unread books, hoarded clothes, non-verbalised confessions, herculean responsibilities, and sobriety-enlaced resolutions hold if they didn’t have another December to look forward to?

You live December to the fullest, just so you have stories to recount, January onwards.

Stories of lament, stories of fulfilment, stories that unburden and then saddle you down immediately after with new concerns.

December reminds you that you are going to mess up, but that’s okay.

There is always January.