"The dates don't matter, I wanted to say. It's the 31-day stretch that's important you could do it whenever. But of course this is wrong: we reserve these privations for January on purpose. Despite, or perhaps because of the month's prodigious capacity to disappoint, we go out of our way to make January hard on ourselves. It starts with the tremendously misleading idea of a clean slate."
"By the 15th, I have accepted that I'm beginning 2026 further behind than I ended 2025, and that this cycle will continue until I die. As my wife and I arrive home from walking the dog on a cold and thankless morning, something terrible occurs to me as I Iook up our road. Oh shit, I say. It's bins. Like every January, bin collection has moved to a staggered timetable. And like every January, I have failed to adapt."
A couple quarrel about the official start date of Dry January, arguing over holidays, Sundays, and regional differences. The narrator admits the exact date matters less than the 31-day commitment yet acknowledges that January is deliberately chosen for privation. The narrator describes the misleading promise of a clean slate and discovers missed deadlines and obligations from December carry into January. By mid-month the narrator accepts beginning the year further behind. Domestic inconveniences follow: staggered bin collections, awkward home repairs, and a fridge full of near-expired food.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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