The Door of Unmade Choices: Chapter 18

 

CHAPTER 18 – THE JANUARY DOOR

 

January never knocks before entering. It bursts in, egged on by drunkards counting down to its return like it’s some prodigal child returning home. January doesn’t need to announce itself. It just shows up one morning, standing in the doorway of your life, tracking in snow and ready to crash on your couch for 31 days.

Like I said before, I don’t do well in January.

*

By the time the storm started, I was alone in my office, coat still on, heat trying to muster up enough motivation to function. Outside, the city disappeared one flake at a time. It was the kind of snow that looks beautiful as it falls, offering the promise of peace and serenity. So it is with January. The promise of a new year. New opportunities to become a better person.

I hate this month. Not in a casual way. My hatred is forged from experience. It’s all short days, long nights, cold weather, and the sound of your own thoughts echoing in an empty stairwell of resolutions you’ve already failed to keep.

And the snow.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, topped it off with some bourbon, and stared out the window from my desk chair. Somewhere out there, doors were appearing. They were popping up in alleys, hallways, bedrooms, and side streets people avoid. The doors always lead to somewhere else. But the one that matter on that snowy night wasn’t outside. It stood on the other side of the desk against the far wall of my office, where a filing cabinet used to be.

I don’t remember the exact date or time my door appeared to me. That’s the trick of the dangerous ones. They rewrite your memory so you can’t be sure when you stopped noticing them.

Mine enjoyed showing me a life I might have known. Not a better one or even a happier one. Simply, a quieter existence. It was the version of me that stayed. The one that took the promotion. Learned how to swallow things instead of naming them. A marriage that didn’t end in questions no one wanted to answer. A badge that didn’t end up in a drawer like a forgotten souvenir from a vacation.

But I do remember that door showed in January. It made regular appearances, but January made the door louder. Every year, right on schedule, it reminds me of all the decisions that calcified instead of resolving. The cases I walked away from because understanding the truth didn’t mean anyone would thank me for it. The nights I chose solitude because it was easier than explaining myself. Regret loves winter because the cold keeps it preserved.

I stood up before I realized I was moving. Stood too close to the door. Close enough to feel the pull—not physical, but emotional, like gravity aimed directly at the center of the soul.

The door didn’t promise me happiness. It promised relief. You can stop here, it seemed to say. You don’t have to keep choosing. You don’t have to keep helping people out of holes you know too well.

That’s when it hit me. That’s what Frank was circling. Not the fantasy of a better life. The exhaustion of carrying the current one.

I backed away, slow, deliberate. Sat down hard in my chair like I’d narrowly missed falling through ice. Outside, the snow thickened, pressing against the window like it wanted in. Or wanted me out.

January messes with your head because it feels like proof that warmth was temporary. Proof that light was a lie you told yourself to get through December. It convinces you that who you are right now is all you’ll ever be. Doors love that lie. I laughed once, quietly. The kind of laugh only meant for yourself.

“No,” I said to the room. To the door. To myself. “That’s not how this works.”

I finally understood what my job wasn’t. I wasn’t there to convince Frank his other lives were worse. I was there to remind him that unfinished doesn’t mean failed. That standing in the cold doesn’t mean winter won.

I grabbed my coat, shrugged it on, and turned off the desk lamp. The door stayed where it was. It always does. Mine isn’t going anywhere.

As I stepped out into the snow, I felt something shift—not outside, but in me. A kind of alignment. The way a lock clicks when you stop forcing it.

Frank didn’t need answers. He needed company. Someone to stand with him in the month that lies to you and say, This isn’t permanent. This isn’t proof. This is just weather.

And for the first time all January, I didn’t feel trapped. I felt ready.


*****



My new comedic sci-fi novel, Someone Else's Book Club, is available on my website or through Amazon! 

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