Around early January, a thought visited with me and I have been hosting it since.  Every now and then, I take it out for a walk and we float around each other.  I shared a little of it with someone I thought would understand,  but I was unable to explain myself and I feel he dismissed it.  Here is what it looks like.  Based on all that we know, unless something changes, we are all going to die.  For every lung that breathes, for every heart that beats, there is a single second on a future date when the activity of “living” will cease. The last breath, the last pump.  The music will evolve into something else that we do not yet know.  If this is so then we are in a sense already dead.  We are in a sense ghosts flitting about.

Because that future will come and pass, in a sense it already has.  One is dead the moment one is born.  Here is what makes this a little interesting: if we are already dead, then what are we afraid of? Actually dying, duh! But it is guaranteed based on what we “know”, so alive is as good as dead!  Why won’t we, then, just be?  Why won’t we want less?  Why won’t we enjoy wanting rather than have it enjoy us?  Why won’t we be braver?  Why won’t we dare more?  Why won’t we do what matters: be beautiful?

Here is the experiment. It might seem a touch crazy for some of you, but I hope some of you will find it interesting.  For February, think I am dead. Happily dead.  To be happily dead one must have lived happily. To create that future of peaceful rest, you have February. You cannot live if you are dead——or perhaps you do, we do not know that yet. To keep things from getting confusing the experiment is to, in a sense, live in reverse.  Think that the future has come and you have kicked that proverbial bucket.  Happily so.  But February is one of your great memories.  Here is the rule, make it memorable.  Stamp this month into your timeline.  How? By both being you and not being you.  Being you by daring to be yourself, even when others will laugh at you (what do you care? You’re dead and so are they).  And not being you by stepping outside your comfort zone and trying things that you are curious about.  I went to a place where I knew I was not wanted.  It is not my thing to go where I am not wanted.  My pride does not care for it, but I did all the same to its disgust, and it was frightening, and very very awkward: I heard my heart beat so loudly in my chest.  It felt as though time had frozen, or that everything was happening in slow motion. It was only for a few seconds, yet every part of that second is scorched into my memory.  The reaction of the people around me felt like a collective gasp. It was awful and yet powerful knowing that I chose to put myself in that situation.  I chose to to be uncomfortable.

Yes, what I am suggesting is to be uncomfortable in February, but in a fun exploring sort of way.  Say no if you feel like so, but if you catch yourself feeling funny, maybe say yes and torture yourself a little.  Go out into the snow and twirl around if you feel like so, I promise you, they will not call the mental home on you.  Your body is rotting somewhere six feet below and you are living a memory. Celebrate your life but be respectful of it and of others.  Eat that ice cream, but much less than you actually can,  there is something neat about having just a bite of something good.  I suggest we leave a little room for wanting: to enjoy wanting without the need to satisfy it entirely. Workout and enjoy the poetry of perspiration, the flow of your body, the uncomfortable feeling of maintaining yourself.  So February is that month when you take yourself seriously and at the same time not so seriously.  Yes, go and try on that lovely dress you have been checking out for a while now but cannot afford. Buy it if the return policy is friendly, bring it home and dress up, take pictures of yourself having a party in it, or reading in it——whatever floats your flying carpet——but treat it carefully.  In the next day or two or three, return it with your no-nonsense face.

Fall in love with your body, your sense of self.  Dodge the people who do not give a farting cow about you, spend more time with those who do.  Do not delude yourself about life, be aware of it and learn to live awesomely in spite of it.  Do the things that make you laugh more.  Hug the ones that make not being actually dead, actually fun.  Tell the people you love that you LOVE them…better yet show them!   Let your voice be heard.  You matter.  Very much so. And you are dead.  Happily dead, but it is only because you have lived every moment of this February by doing more of the things you care for.  There are so many ways to make a moment beautiful.  But beauty is personal. What is beautiful to you? Go after it.  Chase it like you mean business.  Your heart is drumming for you, and  only you: dance to your beats.  I wish you good luck and lots of fun!

Happy first day of February!
Jane