January is the time for change and new bed sheets

by Kay Hoflander

January 13, 2007






The month of January is all about contemplation and change. Not that I may change anything at all, but I think about it a lot in January.

I am not sure we Baby Boomers are that keen on change anyway.

Still, the first month of the New Year is full of the promise of change, and I like the idea, in the beginning.

For instance, there are the annual January white sales in all my favorite stores, and I am confident this will be the year I replace the sheets. Maybe I will cover the sofa and buy a new bedskirt and comforter set as well. Usually by the time I decide what I want, the sales are over.

New calendars arrive, but some of them begin with Monday instead of Sunday. I cannot fathom that at all, so I probably will not use them. I have to wonder who designed those calendars, some 23-year-old commercial art students fresh out of college? Don’t they know we Baby Boomers have to have our calendars start on Sunday because that is all we have ever known? Ok, Ok, I suppose they are designed for the business week, but why?

We had a house guest recently who helped with dinner and graciously set the table. She arranged it beautifully although differently that we do. She happened to move two unneeded chairs out of the way because there were only four of us at a table for six. Perfect. Lovely table. Dinner is served.

Enter my Baby Boomer husband who was immediately thrown by the change. He simply could not figure out where to sit. “Well,” he said, I always sit here. Why are there two chairs missing? Where do I sit? This is my spot on this side of the table? Why am I supposed to sit on the other side?”

As I was saying, we Baby Boomers may like to think we are open to new ways, but truth be told, we drag our feet kicking and screaming into the new year and into anything new at all. The old year and our old ways were just fine with us.

Farmers in the Midwest, have a saying for our January conundrum, “Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none,” like last year.

In many ways though, last year did bother us a lot. Every year does.

So, we contemplate change each January and hope that this January change will actually happen.

Often, we are tempted to leave well enough alone and not tackle the newness we want in our lives but may be reluctant to find. Perhaps, it is a new job, retirement, new surroundings, new car, more travel, a new boss, less worries, more contentment, less weight, new sheets.

The truth is we know all too well that change is absolutely necessary for survival.

Confucius admonished us that change is required for happiness as well, “They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.”

William Blake once wrote that it is critical to happiness to change one’s mind as well, “The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

Adaptation is what we need in January. Try something new. Think new thoughts. Look at life differently. Buy new sheets. Move the chairs. Try to understand a calendar that begins on a Monday. Well, maybe not the calendar.

After all, according to Washington Irving, “There is a certain relief in change, even though it may be from bad to worse As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place!”

First thing next January, I am buying new sheets.