Happy February everyone! I think most of you saw this one coming if you’ve known me for a long time, mainly because February has always been the worst month ever. No, it’s not because of Valentine’s Day, if anything, Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays even if it means I have to look at some of your questionable relationships…. But growing up I loved the color pink, and I loved the idea of Valentine’s Day even if it meant that I was spending the past 19 years of my life single but that’s not the point.
For most of my life for as long as I could remember, February has always been a very traumatic month, because I feel like every bad thing to ever happen in my life happens this month. Especially in high school, a lot of my friends, and I spent the month of February depressed because we were always dealing with something. On top of that, the month of February is also my birthday. Even though my birthday is the last day of February, the 28th. Everyone always tells me that if my birthday is on the last day of the month, shouldn’t that be a good thing because it’s the last day of my least favorite month? While I understand that logic, I feel like all the things I’ve ever had to go through during this month were so upsetting that by the time I reached my birthday, I couldn’t care enough to celebrate.
February is also a month of death. I’ve witnessed family members, and my friend's family members die right before my eyes, and I remembered specifically a few years ago in high school attending a funeral at this time and nothing had prepared me for what I was going to go through that month. From there on out, I constantly felt the burden of this terrible month, and while I got into college and things started to slowly look better, I hated that every single time this month would come by, I had the most terrible mindset about it because I would constantly live in fear of what could happen.
I know this got very dark real quick, but that’s not the point of this blog today for once. I am writing this today because this is the first time that I felt like going into February, I’ve been more relieved than I have been stressed. I’m thankful to have finally felt like I got some sort of closure after all these years, but I know that not everyone feels the same way. I think I could collectively say that a lot of people hate this month and even if you don’t have anything associated with it, February is a really awkward month because it’s still really cold out but it’s also getting to the point of spring at the same time, so you’re in that awkward position where you don’t know if it’s gonna be super cold or decently warm the next day. The weather is still as depressing as ever and a lot of people really hate Valentine’s Day, and I feel as if there is nothing to look forward to this month, unlike the other months.
I spent a lot of my life looking back into the past when something has already happened. I was just sitting in my bed today thinking about all the months of February that I have experienced in the past few years of my life and how at the time I thought that it was the worst thing I have ever experienced but as I got older, I realized how lucky I was that I had people around me to experience that with. I was going through some of the toughest times of my life in those months of February but I was not the only one, and I knew that having people around me made me feel not alone. It’s important to mention this because I think every single year I look at February as such a bad month and I look at my past as if I never had a wonderful moment in February but that is such a lie.
Junior year in February was the worst of them all but I remember that year like no tomorrow because on my birthday I received a gift from my friend group and it was a really thoughtful gift. At the time I thought that this might’ve been the best gift I could’ve ever received, as I got older I am very lucky to say that I’ve gotten even better gifts that I didn’t think was possible but at the time my friends had made a group chat on Snapchat and named it like “TT’s birthday present” (Creative, I know) or something along those lines, and while I had no idea that they were even planning to do this, I just remembered, accidentally seeing the group chat name on one of my friends phones the day of and I instantly knew. I’m surprised they were even able to keep it from me for that long, but I always had some sneaking suspicion, and I eventually found out later that night on my birthday, I had opened the gift and it was a Tyler Seguin jersey that my friends had chipped in $20 each so they could get me a real jersey. In high school, chipping in $20 is a lot of money, especially because we were also stingy with it at the time because most of us still didn’t have jobs so we would have to ask our parents for it but I remembered receiving it, and being the happiest person ever and that I was so lucky to have friends who are so thoughtful and we’re willing to do something for me on a day that I hated so much which was my birthday and that they were all willing to pull themselves together after that funeral we attended earlier that month.
My senior year, my birthday was great because I got to spend it at our high school hockey game at one of my favorite rinks. It was so simple, but all I ever wanted for my birthday was to spend it at a place I loved. The one thing I did enjoy was that my birthday was usually the last regular season game for hockey (college and high school) and that was always an exciting time to spend it on.
Then we got into my freshman year of college where I had the most chaotic birthday week of my life. Yes, you read that right, I had a birthday week because every single day of that week I had something I was doing with friends and I was so exhausted by the end of that week that I did not see myself doing anything for the next two months. I’m even surprised I was willing to do so many things because I hated celebrating my birthday and the last thing I wanted was to create a fuss about it but it was worth it that year. I felt so much love from those around me and I was so happy.
After all this, you must be wondering why am I recalling all these things that happened if my birthday was so bad in the past? Well, that’s the thing, my birthday wasn’t really that bad, but I think I spent most of my time just dwelling on the really bad parts of my birthday in the past or the bad parts of February, and because of that, I never had a proper mindset about my birthday. Keep this in mind I have never been a person that liked extravagant celebrations, I really liked a chill birthday and at most I enjoyed spending my birthday by myself, but last year it was not an option for me to do that but it opened my eyes to see how thankful I was to have all sorts of people around me that cares so much about a day that I found was so insignificant.
Obviously, I can’t guarantee that February will be a great month for anybody because it has not always been for a lot of us, but I hope that whoever is reading this can finally find that sense of peace within themselves and that they get the best month of their life because they deserve it.
I can’t guarantee that this month will be great for me either but I think for once in my life I’m going into it with such an open mind that maybe for once, I’ll be worth it. Recently I’ve had some amazing luck and anyone who is around me kind of knows how lucky of a person I am, and that’s why I learned not to take anything for granted because while January might’ve been a great month for me, I can’t guarantee that this month will be great but at least I can be positive about it for once, and hope for the best and maybe in return, it will finally live up to the standard It’s supposed to live up to for me. Because who doesn’t want to have a good birthday month?
This is a weird time because I am turning 20 at the end of this month and 20 is such an odd number to be turning and if anything I feel like it feels insignificant but I’m excited at the same time. I know a lot of people around me have been upset about the fact that they are turning 20 soon but, to be honest, I feel like turning 21 is scarier, but we just tend to celebrate it so much to even think about how scary it is while when you’re 20 there’s a celebration, but not to the extent as if you were turning 21. Every year, I get a little bit more nervous that I’m turning a different age but I think that’s totally natural to feel that way and right now I have a pretty positive mindset about it because it shouldn’t be a bad thing. We all age and grow up and it truly is a beautiful thing.
A lot of people have also been texting me, asking me what I’m going to do during the week of my birthday, and to be completely honest, I haven’t really thought about it and I don’t plan on doing much for it because I think I just need to live my life and if something happens to come up that week, I will participate, but in the meantime, I need to live my life in the moment. (P.S., one specific friend has always told me to live in the moment and I never listened to him because I’m difficult, but if only he could see how far I’ve come now. He probably won’t even read this but he will see it eventually).
I’ve gone into 2023 as a changed person, and while I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions for myself, because I don’t really believe in them, this is the longest I’ve ever had to working toward a successful year, so I’m gonna keep living my life and hopefully, it’ll take me to where it needs to be.
I don’t know what changed within me to have a more positive mindset and it’s kinda scary because I’m not that person, and I didn’t realize that I "changed" until my professor told me that I have such a positive mindset, and I looked at him, terrified because no one has ever told me that before and it was weird and I still think he’ll get over it once he actually gets to know me, but as of now, I’ll go with it. But truly. I think just after living my life recently for the past couple of weeks and having a consistent schedule for myself, waking up at 8 AM every day, finally taking deep breaths, and pushing myself back when I overwhelm myself too much, I’m finally making such important changes to my life that is helping me mentally And obviously, it kind of helps that a bunch of good stuff has been happening to me recently but I’m glad it’s all been worth it after such a terrible few months of school for me.
If you’re reading this and later throughout this month, you realize that it’s not going the way you want it to and need a friend, please feel free to talk to me, because coming from someone who hated this month so much growing up and finally coming to this realization point I understand where you’re coming from and I wish I had been able to voice out my hatred when I was younger so I’m always here for anyone who needs it.
Anyways, I’ve already said this before, but I’ll say it again because everyone deserves happiness. I hope this month gives you everything you’ve ever wanted because you all deserve it and for once let’s hope that it’s not a shitty time. I hope you receive the best luck of your life just like I did hehe:)
Sincerely, TT :)
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