December is a strange month. It feels like cold air, the kind that chills your lungs as you breathe; the inside of a hotel room in Japan, and all the decembers after that, remembering. 

It often sends me on the same train of thought - the melancholy makes me wonder about the meaning of suffering; that makes me think about whether life is about creating meaning from suffering, or if there is more than that, something that has managed to lift away from suffering, something that can call itself pure joy. 

And that makes me think about what I should do with my life, and what one human can do, and whether what I can do is the same as what I should do. 

And that makes me tired. 

I remember I'm supposed to count my blessings; and that all of our time on earth is short.