The God Of The Doorway.

So here we are, still recovering from our New Years celebrations and trying to remember (and to keep) our resolutions, as we enter the first month of a new year. And a new decade. And if you are like me, you might sense a void, or a feeling of emptiness, as January is in a certain way an anticlimax to the month of December, which passed too quickly with all the joy and lights of the Christmas Holidays.

I have to admit that I dislike January. This poor month most likely doesn't deserve it, but it holds very little of my affection. It is one of the longest months of the year. Not in the amount of days, but in the sense that it feels endless.
Named after Janus, the Roman God of the Gates or Doorways, often depicted with two faces, one gazing backward and one forward, it signifies a simultaneous end and a new beginning.

I never make any resolutions and I dislike any kind of endings. Therefore New Years Eve leaves me usually with a sting of melancholy. Still, I have decided to try to see things differently this time. After all, the promise of a new beginning and a fresh start is one of the most intriguing parts of life. The sense of expectations, the idea of new experiences in the coming twelve months that are to be filled with marvel, joy, and moments of happiness, as well as occasional pain or sorrow - to keep our reality in balance. A plethora of events that makes every year special and exciting, like a brilliant pearl in a precious necklace that is life.

As I stand in the doorway between the new and the old, in the midst of the cold and very dark, never ending winter - just like the God Janus, looking back with sweet melancholy at what was, I am also looking forward with excitement to what is to be.