Landslide

January has always been a month filled with anxiety and dread. While everyone else rings in the new year refreshed and resolutioned up, I hang back, wary, like a child clinging to her mother's hand.

Every year for at least the past three years, I’ve cried on New Year’s Eve and the day of New Year’s as well. It’s never been a good time for me. With the dissonance between expected holiday cheer and what often turns out to be a lackluster end to the year; the negative memories and emotions that arise from being at home; and the anxiety that comes with a new year and the sense of time slipping away, I often find myself lying on the floor or on my bed, sinking into growing depression and existential dread. 

It’s not that I try to be a Grinch, and every year, battered by the passing semester, I manage to convince myself that this winter break will be different, a period of joy and relaxation. But somehow, things just don’t turn out that way. And maybe it has less to do with the holidays themselves as it does with what this time of year represents.

One of my favorite melancholy songs is “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. I don’t think any song more accurately captures the distinctive slush of muted sadness, anxiety, fear, and nostalgia that comes with shifting into another phase of life; a combination that, noticeable as it is, differs from any form of intense emotional pain because of how weighted it feels. It’s anchored by its inevitability, by the acceptance that seems to always tinge its waters; the understanding that, as upsetting as it may feel, the very presence of this mixture indicates that somehow, you’re doing life right.

These emotions have been creeping up on me since December. I cried for an hour one afternoon to my boyfriend about my impostor syndrome over stepping into my new role as magazine chair and not wanting to say goodbye to people who would no longer be in the magazine (even if I theoretically knew I could stay in touch with them). And my heightened anxiety, which I previously attributed to finals season, hasn’t gone away even weeks into break; perhaps a part of me recognizes that things are becoming real, and fast. This past semester was the first one where I felt like I was finally doing college instead of stumbling in the dark or just trying to survive, and now, college is already more than half over. In just a year, I’ll be facing my senior spring, my final semester of four years. 

Everything is moving too fast, too soon.

If you’ve been keeping up with my writing or know me personally, you should know by now that I’m sensitive to many things. Change is a big one for me. Part of why I’ve struggled so much in college is because so many aspects of it — classes, activities, people, routines — are so transient. Though I know that change is essential for growth, for life itself, and have even written several entries reflecting on these topics, when it comes time to turn another page, to enter yet another season of life, I find myself wanting to snap the book shut and hunker down in bed. To freeze time, or perhaps simply to hide from it.

I can’t fully explain my deep need for stability. Without getting into the messy details of my childhood trauma, I would say that part of it stems from the fact that I’ve never really had the full emotional and psychological security a person like me requires. Even then, why this strikes such a deep chord in me and often makes me cry just thinking about it still eludes me. What I do know is that I’ve always longed to have certain parts of my life and certain relationships just stay forever — and that any perceived threats to this become very distressing to me.

It’s no surprise, then, that New Year’s is hard. January in general, really, has always been a month filled with anxiety and dread. While everyone else rings in the new year refreshed and resolutioned up, I hang back, wary, like a child clinging to her mother’s hand instead of playing with other kids on the playground. (Surprise, surprise, this is not far from how I was in preschool and elementary school.) I feel like there’s something wrong with me. I feel like I’m making a big deal out of things that aren’t that big; like if only I could get out of my head, I could brave these seasons and turn these pages like anyone else can.

The reservoir at Pinnacles National Park, where my dad and I went on our first of many hikes this year.

The sky reflects so perfectly in the reservoir that I feel whole. On yet another outdoor adventure — the first of this year — my dad and I had just crawled through caves and up countless rocky steps, past several rogue streams and waterfalls to arrive here. It’s pleasant, unusually quiet. In my head, “Landslide” begins to play. Oh, mirror in the sky/what is love?/Can the child within my heart/rise above?

Jagged rocks and scraggly desert trees and shrubs stretch out under the sun, their image perfectly suspended upside down in the still water. I traipse down a rock and stand by the water’s edge. 

Can I sail through the changing/ocean tides?/Can I handle the seasons/of my life?

In the reflection, the clouds sweep below the earth. I almost believe that if I stretch far enough, I can brush them.