A Blur Shaped Like January

I close my eyes and sink into the ebullient bubbles of the champagne. Open them again, look at the number as if it means anything real. As if a new year will bring a new world. As if.

If I've learned anything, it's that time is a lie we tell ourselves to give moments meaning. Unmoored from appointments, hours, social obligations, what difference is there between 11:59 PM and 12:00 AM? The human eye can perceive no alteration in the dark outside.

I blink again and it's January 5th. My memory of the past days is hazy, blurred by intoxicants and lack of significance.

Another blink. January 29th, 2021. I'm still writing the date wrong, not that it matters. The clock reads 6:30 PM. My stability ball bounces as I stand. The connection between my computer and the servers, hundreds of miles north, flickers away.

My next blink takes me to January 31st. Another weekend slipped away, drowned in lazy mixology experiments. Sunlight splays meekly across the floorboards, filtered through the gauzy curtain of snow. I lay back on my bed, abandoning any attempt at getting dressed.

I sleep through the last hours of January 2021. Early the next morning, I will wake and scroll through cautiously optimistic but utterly noncommital updates: "We hope," "We plan," "We intend," "Please check back for further updates." And years later, I will not be able to tell February 1st from the month before it.