february as a huguenot
February, month of despair, with a skewered heart in the centre - Margaret Atwood
I am 7,079 days old and I am crying on the Metro North line. I didn’t have to go home, I could’ve rescheduled things, but I needed to go home. I force myself to come back that same night, because if I don’t I worry I’ll never muster up enough courage to ever return.
February 1. Nothing, merely tired. - Franz Kafka
I am 7,080 days old and I am crying in my twin XL in the dark under the covers because of a Taylor Swift edit. I make a playlist entitled ‘no it’s 4 the better’ and resist the urge to put “Margaret” by Lana del Ray on it because it will make me cry even harder. Instead, I add “this is me trying” and “I miss you, I’m sorry.” Part of my self-inflicted punishment is not allowing myself to listen to songs that don’t reflect the choices that put me here.
February. Haze of confusion. Fatigue, mingled excitement and horror. - Dorothy Livesay
I am 7,082 days old and I am crying in the office and I don’t know why. I’m dictating a question to production and all of a sudden my throat closes up and there’s a lump on my tongue and my eyes begin to sting. I blink, push my glasses up on my head, and cough.
I listen to “Francesca” on the walk home and scream at the top of my lungs in the elevator because I am sick of crying, I am tired of crying, and I am tired of not knowing what to do.
February arrives like a train and runs over the bones of January, and just like that - the death of the new year. - Ritika Jyala
I am 7,048 days old and I am crying in my childhood bedroom as I watch Little Women. I cry because I know the New Year will hold change, and it will be my fault, and I do not know how to heal from it when it’s not even happened yet. I sling plates and offer to work doubles to save the money I know that I will spend when I am sad.
Jo March is beloved by women because she is a writer and because she is honest, but she is beloved by me because she has the courage to know when to say no.
And February - it’s all about regaining consciousness. - Zugan
I am 7,081 days old and I call my mom and I tell her that I think I will be okay. She agrees, and she tells me that she knew all along. I wear my heeled boots, I wash my hair, and I refill my prescriptions. I take myself to the beach, and I soak up the sun for 90 minutes until my craving for pasta is too strong.
I wander into an Italian restaurant and eat my favorite pasta dish and dip the free bread into oil and take the sign from God that I am in the right place, and that I am doing the right thing. It was blurry for a second.
February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer. - Shirley Jackson
I am 7,083 days old and I’m crying in the shower. I was silly to think that things would be over just yet, and all I want to do is go for a drive and wind through the roads of the woods I grew up in and blast Phoebe Bridgers at scream at the top of my lungs that I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to act.
I write three pages in my journal about wistfulness, and what it means that I spend each season wishing for it to be the next. I worry I’ve spent my entire life wishing away a season.
You have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm, of cloudiness… - Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing
I am 7,085 days old and I throw myself into work and fill in any white space on my Google Calendar. I loose my marbles over an email signature and write my 679th email. The responsibility is slipping off my shoulders and crushing the tips of my toes.
In 1572, on St Bartholomew’s Day, 3,000 Huguenots were massacred in Paris. A white armband meant an allegiance to Catholicism. The Catholic woman attempts to get her Protestant lover to wear the armband to keep him safe. He gently pulls it away, ready to face his destiny. This is their last embrace.
I mean, it’s just the trenches. I am tired of answering questions. But it’s the trenches.