Suzanne Harrington: Happy Epiphany! Slogging through January, one day at a time

Suzanne Harrington. Pic by Andrew Hasson

Happy Epiphany. No idea what that means, apart from the Joycean idea of a lightbulb moment, but it sounds cheerful, doesn’t it? Like the popping of a champagne cork.

Not that you’ll be doing any cork-popping this month, unless it’s something 0.0%.

No — you’ll be slogging through Dry January, telling yourself to think about your liver’s wellbeing and happiness; how it will be sighing with relief as it gets a month off to rejuvenate after all the bacchanalia, maybe generate a few new cells.

The liver equivalent of a wellness retreat at a luxury spa, eye mask on, phone off.

Your colon will probably be on the spa lounger next to your liver, feet up, as you have also decided to give Veganuary a go.

Instead of having to process all kinds of indigestible fatty proteins, cannibalised from former owners whose DNA is alarmingly similar to your own, your gut will be having a go at more soothing plant-based content.

You will feel incredibly smug. Maybe a bit flatulent, but incredibly smug. It’s possible you become so attached to this feeling of moral superiority that you decide to stay plant-based just so you can tell people about it. No ass cancer for you, baby.

Obviously you’ll have joined a gym as well, or rejoined the one whose membership you allowed lapse around this time last year. 

You’ll already have started littering your conversation with terms like circuits, burpees, cardio, and electrolytes. You’ll go on about your PBs with your PT. You’ll go on about your glutes.

You’ll obsess about hydration, and start carrying one of those gigantic metal water bottles everywhere, as though crossing the Kalahari on foot; you may even start carrying protein shakes — your kitchen is full of plant-based protein powder — in case you die of protein withdrawal before lunch.

You’ll get one of those watches that calculates your belly fat and likelihood of stroke, which you will stare at intently when running. 

Because naturally you’ll have started running — it’s January. Expensive new trainers, an upper arm monitor that measures something important, and a headband to make you look serious.

Ostentatious mouth breathing as you lumber along the January pavements, intermittently gasping and clutching at lamp posts because you have no idea how to run-breathe. You injure yourself within a week.

After uploading all your running gear on eBay, you flop back on the sofa.

Immobilised to a limping hobble, and unable to leave the house, this seems an excellent time to get into meditation, which you haven’t tried since — gosh — was it this time last year?

How hard can it be to stare into a candle and completely rid your mind of all thoughts, so that it resembles the inside of an empty white paper bag? Very hard, actually.

Harder than burpees, harder than running, harder than Dry January, harder than Veganuary, harder than all of them combined. Has it really only been 92 seconds since you lit that bloody candle?

Happy Epiphany. Only three weeks and four days until February.