Somehow, we are still here. Even though this month started years ago. How many years? Nobody knows. We stopped counting after the first trillion.

But on it goes, endlessly, mirthlessly, punctuated by funerals and re-watching TV series you’ve watched eight times before.

Sunshine has become the currency of joy – a currency no-one can buy and no bureau de change can sell.

And why, when I’m doom-scrolling, does the amount of ads I see seem to double incrementally each endless fucking day? Buy! Buy! Buy! there’s sod all else to do.

Only there’s loads to do, but it’s either unpalatable or the energy cannot be found, cannot be generated, cannot, can’t.

So the hallway remains covered in mud brought in from a rare walk outside and the shopping remains in bags on the kitchen floor – why spend energy you don’t have to wipe down and sanitise everything when you can leave it for a week in the hope any virus will die on its own. Doesn’t it know time is meaningless? Why does it still cling to surfaces like my claws around my phone?

How, HOW, is it still January? Though it appears on the calendar that today is the last day of this godforsaken month, is it in fact a trick? Will we wake up tomorrow to find it’s still January 31st, an endless day, every day, until we forget February ever existed? Until we forget we ever existed?

And February has traditionally always been a shit month anyway, with its Valentine mockery and cold wet days.

But (because there is always a but, there has to be a but) the daffodils are coming out. There are bunches in my living room right now. Dying, I grant you, but it’s been a week and they opened in a day and shot through the gloom with their sunshine yellow. Outside, at some point in the night, the bulbs pushed their stems up through the earth and they are waiting, waiting to burst open – tulips and daffodils and crocuses.

If this month ever ends.

If this month ever ends, then the daytime will push into evening and the buds – I’ve seen them! – will open like popcorn into white and pink blossoms and colour the streets with joy, with beauty.

If this month ever ends.

If this month ever ends, there will be anniversaries and birthdays and nights without all the blankets, days without all the socks.

If this month ever ends.

If this month ever ends, and the next month and the next six after that, I will turn 45 and I will be 45 for everyone who never got to be 45.

If this month ever ends.