The waiting month

December was the month where nothing happened, and I've learned those are the hardest ones to be honest about. The course didn't start until January. The licence wasn't coming back. There was nothing to do but wait, recover, and get through Christmas without a job.

Limbo has its own weather. Some days the January course felt like a genuine new start; other days it felt like something I'd agreed to in order to have something to say when people asked what I was doing. Both feelings were true, sometimes in the same hour.

Christmas with no job is a strange exercise in accounting. Every gift bought is measured twice. Every 'so what's next for you?' at the table needs an answer you don't fully believe yet. I said 'I'm starting a tech course in January' a lot. Saying it out loud helped more than I expected.

I'm writing this month down because most people reading this are living in some version of it — the gap between what ended and what comes next. December taught me the gap is survivable. You don't have to fill it. You just have to get through it.