January: Thirty-One Shades of Bleak

January. Endless, bleak, and seemingly precisely designed to break even the most resilient among us. I foolishly kicked things off this year with a piece titled “Hello 2025: What could possibly go wrong?”—a taunt to the universe so reckless, even Icarus himself would’ve winced. And, dear reader, the universe answered.

Some people flirt with danger; I, apparently, invite it in for tea and let it rearrange the furniture. This month has delivered a fresh round of chaos, including yet another hospital visit and, without exaggeration, one of the most terrifying experiences of my adult life, during which I genuinely feared I’d lost Emma forever. I will summon up the courage to talk about that in a moment… But fear not—it wasn’t all doom and gloom. There were glimmers of joy, too. So, brace yourself, grab a cup of tea, and relax into my next piece. We’re about to ride the emotional rollercoaster that was January.
No seatbelts, no refunds.

January should be the sunrise of the year. A new beginning. A fresh start. Much like this sunrise photo I took from the roof of a building in my local city. But, no. January is like Colin Robinson from “What We Do In The Shadows,” a literal energy vampire that sucks the very joy from your soul.

If January was the free trial, I’d like to unsubscribe from the rest of the year. Annually, and without fail, we all forget how relentlessly grim this endless month is. We fling open the curtains at the first glimmer of sunshine about halfway through, only to be immediately swallowed by a grey rain cloud of dark abyss that seems personally offended by our optimism. No. No summer for you.

Meanwhile, in World News, this January: Donald Trump is back in office and apparently thinks he’s playing Sid Meier’s Civilization VII as he throws darts at a world map and shouts “mine!”. January 2025 was officially the hottest on record with global air surface temperatures averaging 13.23°C, which is 1.75°C above pre-industrial levels—which means Just Stop Oil protestors will be even more insufferable and probably glue themselves to Centre Court at Wimbledon again. Southern California is actually on fire. And the U.K. government, in a move of true villainy, is reportedly considering making us all buy a TV licence just to watch Netflix.

Good heavens, whatever next?

January has always been pretty awful though, historically. So take solace in the fact that father time is nothing if not consistent. You only have to look back at some of the most awful January’s in human history to realise that.

2022 – The Death of Meat Loaf – A deep loss for rock ballad lovers everywhere.
2020 – COVID-19 Declared a Global Emergency – The WHO officially sounded the alarm on what would become the worst pandemic in modern history. People would begin baking banana bread and doing Zoom quizzes until they literally died of boredom.
2010 – Haiti Earthquake – A catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake killed over 200,000 people and devastated the country.
1991 – Gulf War Begins – Operation Desert Storm launched, and the start of decades of modern Western interference in the Middle East.
1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster – The shuttle exploded 73 seconds after lift-off, killing all seven crew members.
1945 – The Liberation of Auschwitz – A mix of horror and relief, as the world truly saw the extent of Nazi atrocities.
1936 – The Death of King George V – Leading to the whole Edward VIII abdication fiasco.
1649 – Execution of Charles I – The only British monarch to have his head forcibly removed by public demand.

Put your feet up, grab a drink and sit by the fire. This history lesson isn’t over yet.

It’s all about balance, dear reader. It isn’t all a bad day at the office for human-kind. What about the good things?

2024 – First Successful Pig-to-Human Kidney Transplant – Science is getting weird, but in a potentially life-saving way.
2007 – The First iPhone Was Announced, kicking off an era of human history where we’re all permanently attached to a glowing rectangle.
2006 – NASA’s New Horizons Launched on its way to Pluto, proving that tiny, insignificant things still matter (except, apparently, to the people who demoted Pluto from planet status).
1998 – Google Was Born, meaning we never had to memorize anything ever again.
1993 – The Czech Republic and Slovakia Split Peacefully, proving that breakups don’t have to be messy. I’m looking at you, Russia.
1986 – Voyager 2 Passed Uranus (yes, cue the jokes) and sent back the first-ever close-up images of the planet. Science is truly incredible, is it not?
1935 – Canned Beer Was Introduced, revolutionizing how quickly people could consume disappointment.
1929 – Martin Luther King Jr. Was Born, which is a big deal considering he changed the world.
1924 – The First Winter Olympics took place in Chamonix, France, giving us an excuse to watch people hurtle down icy slopes in glorified spandex.
1863 – Abraham Lincoln Issued the Emancipation Proclamation, beginning the process of ending slavery in the U.S. That counts for something.

So, while January does tend to deliver its fair share of misery, at least we got beer, Google, and the iPhone out of it. Not all bad, right?

In other positive news this month, we bought a box. Poppy saw the box. Poppy got in the box. Her entire day was the most incrediblest thing ever because box. Expensive toys? Nope. Box.

Historical reflections aside, and bringing it right back home, January 2025 saw probably one of the most significant things to happen in the Mingo Family Life recently. Emma collapsed. I share this story with Emma’s consent, and I am pleased to report that she is now back on her feet, and this is an abridged version, for obvious reasons. Tone shift incoming.

I got home from a late shift, just before midnight. Something felt off immediately. The downstairs lights were on. Maybe Emma couldn’t sleep? I found the oven was on, but nothing was cooking. A pot of soup was boiling over on the hob. The kids were asleep, but Emma was nowhere to be seen. I called out… No response. I searched the house until I found her—slumped against the wall in the downstairs toilet. Totally unresponsive. What the ****.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get a response from her, so I called 999 for an ambulance. That, in itself, turned into a battle. I didn’t expect to argue with a call handler about whether an unresponsive adult qualifies as a medical emergency, but we eventually got there. In the meantime, I used a few techniques from my frontline experience—pressure points, and whatever else I could think of—to rouse her. But when she came around, she wasn’t there.

The next six hours were some of the most terrifying hours of my, and indeed her life. This wasn’t just confusion—it was a true “lights on, but nobody home” situation. Emma’s eyes were unfocused, her responses were limited to one-word answers, and she kept repeating the same movements. She didn’t recognize me. She didn’t know where she was. And, she has no memory of the last nine hours of her life.

In hospital, I faced my share of frustration with what I believed was a clear misdiagnosis and a total lack of human empathy and respect—but that’s a story for another time. I pointed out to the nurse and doctor that Emma’s hands were raising toward her chest involuntarily and that her pupils were uneven, signs of something seriously affecting her brain. Eventually, they took bloods and ordered a CT scan. I should not have had to fight for that.

Thankfully, the results came back clear—no brain tumour or anything that serious—but it still didn’t explain what was happening. As the night dragged on, I watched Emma, gripped by fear of what might come next. What if she never came back from this? Would I have to dress her, spoon-feed her, care for her in ways I couldn’t yet comprehend? I’d do it without question of course, but I still wanted my Emma back. How would I manage with a disabled daughter, too? What would I tell the kids? What would I say to her mother? The questions piled up, but there was no answer forthcoming. I sat there, frozen, staring at the wall, existing on very little sleep and feeling utterly drained, my mind in a haze. I focused on a fleck of paint on the wall behind Emma. My whole world became that single isolated fleck as my mind entered self-preservation mode, and I pondered the existence of that paint, and if it would be there forever or if one day it would be cruelly sanded down, snuffed out of existence and painted over.

At around 6am, something seemed to click. Emma sat up and looked around, confused. She looked at me and wiped her eyes. She looked at the cannula in her arm.
“Why am I in hospital?”
I broke down. It was blessed relief to have her back in her own mind. Eventually, we went home and she slept for an age.

At the time of writing this, we still don’t know exactly what happened. The working theory is that it could have been some sort of seizure, with Emma being “stuck” in a “postictal state” for over 6 hours. There are other theories, such as a thyroid problem or perhaps a deeper neurological problem we’ve yet to discover. We know we are on the long road for months of tests and appointments now, all whilst living in a constant state of anxiety that this may or may not happen again. I am sure this story isn’t finished yet, but I pray for a happy ending. For now, Emma is back on her feet and back to her fiery self. She is strong and resilient, and she will kick down doors if she has to. But really, couldn’t we have done without that?

She is a pretty powerful woman, and it’ll take a lot more than a mere medical episode to keep her down. I only wish I was half as strong.

It’s not all terrible. There have been some silver linings in January. Family and friends stepped up when it mattered. In an emergency, my parents came around at 1am to stay with the kids so I could blast my way through a severe storm to get to the hospital before Emma woke up, aquaplaning my way down a dual carraigeway. One of our close friends came to just be with us in the aftermath and to remind us to breathe. Evelyn, 11 months old, decided to eat food suddenly! The little tyke apparently loves Philadelphia cheese on bread and shovels it in like it’s going out of fashion. We finally, FINALLY, got planning permission for our extension project, and in turn, our new mortgage was approved. We got to enjoy some classy cocktails. We got to meet some incredible new friends. And, we’re getting a new car! Good things follow the bad, and it’s always darkest before the dawn. Sometimes, it can be hard to remember that.

“Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; they sink because of the water that gets in them. Don’t let what’s happening around you weigh you down.”

Thank you, dear reader, for the support. A huge thanks to all of those who have read our previous articles and have come to talk about them with me, online or off. I have had some interesting conversations and I really appreciate all the overwhelming positive feedback – including from an aunt who used to be a headteacher, high praise indeed for this guy who barely scraped through his GCSE’s. I truly enjoy writing. It is both an escape and a vested interest. Frankly, I haven’t the faintest idea how to break into the writing industry – but if anyone has any pointers then please get in touch, it may be a hobby, or it may one day be my “escape tunnel” as they say in the emergency services world. Thank you to those who have bought us a coffee on the link, and thank you to all those who stepped up when we were down to lift us back up on our feet again.
Onwards, and upwards, friends.

January may have been a bit shit, but 2025 is looking pretty positive to me.