beginning again, still inside

january feels like the inside of a house before anyone else wakes up. the kind of quiet that isn’t empty, just paused. lamps on in rooms no one is sitting in. a chair pulled out slightly from the table like someone meant to come back.

the cold gets in without asking. through the floors. through the sink when you wash your hands too long. i keep forgetting and then remembering again. pulling sleeves down. wrapping fingers around mugs like they’re little anchors.

i notice strange things this time of year. the click of the heat turning on. the way the refrigerator sounds louder at night. how every plant looks a little offended but still alive. half-dead but stubborn. like me, maybe.

i move slowly. not on purpose. january makes everything feel heavier, even the small decisions. i stand in the kitchen longer than necessary. i open the same cabinet twice. i scroll, then stop, then put the phone face down like it asked too much of me.

fear lives in these pauses. but it’s quiet fear. domestic fear. the kind that sounds like maybe later, maybe when you feel clearer, maybe when the room feels warmer. it doesn’t feel cruel. it feels reasonable. which makes it harder to argue with.

gratitude shows up sideways. it’s not loud joy. it’s noticing that i have enough light. enough tea. enough language to name what i’m feeling even when it won’t arrange itself neatly. it’s realizing i still want to speak, even when i don’t know where the sentence is going.

momentum feels misunderstood. i always think it’s supposed to feel like certainty. like a push. like confidence. but lately it feels like setting something down and not picking it back up again. like turning the lamp on instead of staying in the dark because it feels safer there.

there’s something about january that makes beginnings feel exposed. no holidays to hide behind. no spectacle. just days lined up plainly asking what you’ll do with them. sometimes i resent that. sometimes i’m grateful for it.

i think about starting again and how it doesn’t look like reinvention. it looks like returning. to the same table. the same notebook. the same doubts that followed me here. only now i know them better. now they don’t scare me as much when they sit beside me.

the house settles. the heat clicks. a sock goes missing. a plant gets watered a day late. none of it feels urgent. none of it feels like failure. january doesn’t punish slowness. it almost insists on it.

so i let myself wander. i let thoughts come in uneven pieces. i don’t force them to behave. i write sentences that don’t know where they’re headed yet. i trust that movement can be quiet and still count.

beginning again looks like this. staying. listening. sitting with the cold and choosing not to go numb. choosing to light the room anyway. choosing to write, not because it’s time, but because i’m here and the page is open and something in me still wants to reach out.