A month to remember
What it is about February?
I was walking into my office last week - head down against the cold wind taking short, low center-of-gravity steps over ice - pondering this question. I’ve pondered it before. It was a question submitted to me in February 1992 by a fellow graduate student while I was in business school. During my second year at Boston College (more specifically the Wallace E. Carroll Graduate School of Management) I wrote a regular column in the Graduate Exchange, BC’s monthly graduate student newspaper. The column was called “Just Ask Dave” for which students were urged to send in questions for me to answer, whatever they be. The question in question was this: “Dave, why do I feel so down this month?” I thought I’d present my answer exactly as it appeared in print seventeen Februaries ago (there were neither blogs nor the Internet back then). I think the answer still (mostly) holds up. Here goes:
I don’t want to depress anyone but…
February is one of those painfully inevitable things in life that, if given a choice between it and let’s say…well, I really can’t think of anything worse right now. February is a dirty trick. It is the abyss in the annual progression of time. It is an odd, little month. Cold. Cruel. Dark. Let me explain:
There are twelve months in a year (no real new info there). But, eleven of those months have, at the very least, some small amount of redeeming value. February has none. February is about nothing, it adds nothing, it is, in a sense, nothing.
Now, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Dave, what about Valentine’s Day?” True, this day is unique in that it allows one to overtly express love for another. But I believe that it was invented as a way to prevent mass hysteria. You see, in February one is needful of such an artificial “device’ to keep one’s sanity and get through the month (why do you think it falls exactly in the middle of the month!?) What about the Winter Olympics, don’t they happen in February? Well, let me tell you a secret: Nobody cares about the Winter Olympics! What about the New Hampshire primary and the start of the presidential election process, doesn’t that happen in February? Gimmie a break! This year that’s making it even worse. I could keep going - Black History Month, the birthdays of two truly great presidents, etc. Worthy all. But all completely and unfortunately overwhelmed by the meteorological, psychological and biological realities of the month.
Let’s get technical. February is not the coldest month, that title belongs to January. And February doesn’t have the shortest days either, that would be December. So why does February seem like the coldest, darkest month of them all?? Because in December winter is fresh and playful and the holiday season brings joyful glee to all, and January is a time for new beginnings, promise and optimism. Moreover, we give thanks in November and in October we are blessed with a glorious, refreshing change of season. In March we get the occasional warm spell, a fleeting breath of Spring if you will. There are April showers, May flowers, and June through September are just plain great. And then, there’s February.
For those of us in the Northern latitudes, by February we’ve been without a warm-on-your face sun for the maximum number of months prior to the beginning of Spring. By this point our tans have yielded to a strange, tired shade of gray. The hair is brittle, the skin flakes, and the attitude? Well, it sucks.
February is also random. Think about it this way: the other months are arranged with elegant symmetry - some with 30 days, some with 31. So what happened between January and March? It’s as if Pope Gregory XIII (the inventor of the modern calender) found himself with 28 left-over days after distributing all the others among the months. So he said to himself, “hmmm, I guess I’ll just stick them here toward the end of Winter where maybe no one will notice.” Why didn’t he put them between July and August? I don’t know about you but I could use another 28 days of summer. Alternatively, why didn’t he just allocate them equally among the other eleven months. Surely no one would have noticed them that way. To prove this theory further, once every four years we have to add one more worthless day to the year. And where do we find it? At the very end of an already worthless month, that’s where.
But don’t feel too bad because it’s almost over. Even though March 1st is really no different than February 28th, there is one very important thing to keep in mind: it will no longer be February! Spring can’t be far away and Summer just beyond that. Life can begin again <end>
After seventeen years I believe a brief postscript is in order. Since moving further north from Boston it now seems as if it is March, not February, that has the hardest-to-take weather. In addition, my youngest daughter was born in February and I have come to appreciate winter sports and, therefore, the Winter Olympics. So maybe I overstated it all way back then as a grad student…something I will try to remember the next time I slip on the ice.
- Dave Goldberg