Why does January hurt me so?

I listened to an oral essay the other day on the purpose of illness, and if not the purpose, then the positive by-product thereof.
We learn valuable lessons from our discomfort of illness, and as our body coughs and wheezes and suffers with fever, it is telling us something and we should pay attention.
We make promises to that outside force for wellness and we certainly pause in taking our previous good health for granted. As we begin to recover, life seems almost more purposeful as we search for answers.
January and I often are at odds. I try to treat the month fairly but I usually miss the mark–blaming January for my general malaise; blaming January for just about everything that isn’t right, including my bothersome wisdom tooth.
I’m not a fan of most months that boast of 31 days; they, by their very nature, are more difficult to get along with. January inevitably involves coughing for me.
No matter how often I wash my hands and avoid crowds, the germs find me in January and punish me for any number of my sins of neglect. January is cold and dark and when it has gone, I celebrate.
So while I mutter and complain about January, I wondered what I was to have learned, if anything.
When we are comfortable, said the orator I mentioned earlier, we don’t notice injustice or the imbalance of care. We don’t notice racism and poverty, nor do we pay much heed to gender inequality.
But when our world is shaken up by tragedy or crisis of the natural kind, or the acute political discomfort facing our neighbours to the south, we become more aware of the flaws that exist around us.
And it is only awareness that can lead to action that can create positive change.
While busy turning inside out with my cough, I’m acutely aware of my need to drink more water. Likewise, while I wince at the indecency that politics can fling about, I can look for ways to be a positive voice; to be part of the solution for a society that embraces my grandchildren–a world that will see them become young men with empathetic and generous hearts.
I care not what their annual salary will be, but I do care that they will lead positive lives with a passion to leave the planet better than they found it.
I can’t assume that it will happen without my participation. That is what January reminds me; January and my cough.
wendistewart@live.ca