the one experience that unites all 90s and early 2000s kids is experiencing at least one work of fiction with a deceptively adorable illustration of cute animals on the cover who live in societies with an established political system, hierarchy of leadership and culture and are driven from their homes by human activity and/or engage in violent conflicts with other animals in similar communities that lead to many of the characters’ brutal deaths, which are described in graphic detail and which left you briefly emotionally traumatized by being confronted with the concept of your own fragile mortality before you were 10
So it’s very late but I want to share the best piece of wisdom my mother has ever offered me.
One time, when I was having a very hard time, bad enough that I admitted I was struggling to my mother. My mother looked at me and told me: “Don’t make big decisions in February.”
I was very confused, because it was not February at the time, but she explained that one year, when she was younger but old enough to live on her own, she was having a very hard time, much like me. She found herself feeling especially low and especially stressed in February. And she decided she wouldn’t make any big changes for the rest of the month.
And the month went by, and she had a hard time, but time passed and it happened that by the beginning of March, she was feeling a lot better. And she was able to make big decisions she had avoided in February.
So now it’s a mantra for me: Don’t make big decisions in February.
February being whenever I feel down or angry or stressed.
Boss or coworkers being crappy? Don’t make big decisions in February.
Feeling lonely and it’s 2am and you have a bottle of hair dye just sitting on your bathroom sink? Don’t make big decisions in February.
Give yourself space to think through your decisions. Bad moods rarely give you the best judgement. Anxiety disorders, depression, and other mental illnesses will try to convince you the wrong decisions are the right ones, and in the moment, they sound very convincing.
So give yourself time to figure out if that’s what you actually need, what you actually want, and what would maybe feel good in the moment but have consequences you’re not willing or ready to deal with.
Try not to make life changes in February, whatever February is for you.