My not so gentle January 2014

Before gentle January, there was this

I was on my way to work on January 2nd when my brain took a trip back to January 2014. Memories came flooding back, including ones I really didn’t want to remember. After thinking about that month over the past few weeks, I realize that it inadvertently laid the path for my approach to January today. It took me a long time to get there and I don’t really believe in regrets, but ugh, if my younger self had some of these tools, things would have been so much better.

Let’s set the scene. (FYI: this essay mentions suicide and suicide epidemics, please take care). In 2014, there was a weather event called a polar vortex. Frozen had come out in November 2013 and that song Let It Go was everywhere, “The cold never bothered me anyway.” False.