January and I had no bitter farewells for each other this year.  Instead, we shook hands amicably and I cruised into February with a super cheesy smile.  I have reasons:

1. Although we are not out of this ever-looming cloud we call winter, we are a step closer.  

2. February is short.  And the minute it’s over, I will be flying to hot and sunny Costa Rica with my man and some of his family.  Can’t wait to get him in a bikini. Ow ow!

3. In just a couple short weeks I will be celebrating my 27th year of life.  26 sounded mature, but still young and spry.  27?  It starts to hurt my feelings a little bit.  Not to worry, I will more than happily celebrate it with hefty amounts of food and enough wine to….well, let’s just say I’ll be enjoying plenty of it.

 I love wine.

The thing with February, however, is that nearly every year I’ve lived in Michigan, once February rolls in, so does that creepy thing we call Seasonal Depression (dun dun dun!).  My bones ache to be outside, but then when I go outside, I shiver and die from the bitter cold and lack of sun.  I start to care less about puppies and babies and more about why this or that person is such a jerk.  Then my soul is so sad that it creeps out my eyes and I cry and cry about nothing in particular.

I know not all of you can relate, but I also know that plenty of you can.  You know how I know?  Because I’m surrounded by you every day.  I see you, sulking bitterly, on the verge of an uncalled for meltdown.  I also feel your pain.  

We crave sunshine to warm our faces and pack our bodies full of Vitamin C.  It’s so imperative to our happiness to be able to be outside and not freeze.  Which is why I booked my one-way ticket to Costa Rica and will never return!

Okay, it was a two-way ticket to spend nine (yes, NINE) days there, and I was super shaky and anxious at the thought of taking that many days off work.  I second-guessed the shit of it.

I still do, sometimes.  Like the other day, when I brought my car in to get new brake pads, and instead they told me that my car was in desperate need of new brakes entirely, along with a new bushing (wtf is that?) and an alignment.  Totaling a laughable approximation of $1,000.  This is two weeks after I put $300 into that sucker.  My screechy and grindy brakes rolled out of that place ASAP.  I went home and stuck my head in a 4-foot snow bank while I questioned whether or not to cancel my trip.  This car really hates my guts sometimes.

Listen people, I’m going on this trip.  I am leaving this country.  End of story.  Also, I put myself on a spending freeze, so that’s how things are going.  Sometimes, you just do what you gotta do,

Do you ever feel like you’re playing a game with life and it’s totally kicking your ass?  I kind of feel like that right now, as I do most times when we are this deep into the winter season.  

Thankfully, I’ve had the help of my loved ones to remind me that I have a car (albeit an unreliable one), I have the means to take a trip, I have a warm home to keep me from dying of hypothermia, and the list could go on and on.  

So even now, as I take breaks to look up and out the window to glare at the gloomy clouds laughing at my sadness, I have to remind myself of blessings.  Even though I had to wear two extra layers today for my walk from school to work (holy first world problems, right?) I can be happy that I had a gift card to Starbucks, which allows me to sit warmly inside and blog before my trek.  

I must say, the really crappy things that happen to you in life will be the things that build your character in ways you couldn’t imagine.

Let’s stick this out together, k?

To the sun beyond the clouds,

Cheers!