I’m a January baby and while that hasn’t always been great on the present front, on a more symbolic level, a birthday at the beginning of the year usually makes you reflect more on the shininess of new beginnings.
The origin of the word ‘January’ is nothing if not an interesting one: taken from the name of the god with two faces Janus, this particular Roman deity had one face looking in the direction of the past and another looking into the future. It reminds us to keep the past in mind while opening our eyes to the fresh possibilities of everything yet to come. It is a beautiful message and maybe an all too fitting one given the year the country has had.
This year has not been kind to us collectively as a nation. Unforgivable, things have been done, horrific things have been said and there has been little to no atonement. Even among all the Christmas lights and the wishes of good cheer there has been an eery hollowness.
A lot has happened but we still have the opportunity to do better, to be better
It is a sad state of affairs that will no doubt be filling psychologist and psychiatrist couches for months to come. It has left many in a state of confusion and instability. I have spoken to many people in the past weeks, some saying that they no longer recognise their party, many others like me, who feel that they no longer recognise the country itself or its people.
When you’ve been raised in a household where there is nothing higher than the truth, it’s very hard to grapple with people who will always prefer the comforting lie if it keeps them and their families warm at night.
I catch myself trying to be neutral so as not to alienate people, so as to give them a chance to listen to a voice different from the many which already surround them on the newspapers they choose to read and the television stations they inevitably watch. I catch myself feeling gravely disappointed that many people simply don’t care and that our police force thinks nothing of giving permission to a man they are investigating over very serious allegations to go on holiday for three days.
On good days you feel like a foreigner in your own land and try to shrug it off, on bad days I just want to pack up and leave.
This is a crucial time for us as a nation because whether or not we recognise it, we are being given an opportunity to band together and change things hopefully for the better. We are being given yet another opportunity to shed our old skins and older beliefs and stand up to be counted. We need to accept that our morally bankrupt two-party system is not serving anyone and that our country can no longer limp along accepting crumbs while our politicians drink wine which costs half some people’s yearly salaries.
A lot has happened but we still have the opportunity to do better, to be better. We can still demand that things change, we can still tell our leaders that we deserve better. We can still allow ourselves to grow beyond our many times petty prejudices.
Fresh year, make it count.