It only seems fitting to end the year with a note of some kind. I thought about saying goodnight to a tired year, but somehow I feel as though this year is wide awake and ready for a dance party with the new year. So why say goodnight to it? Why even really say goodbye? I want to say
2012, you have been a year of surprise. I knew how old I would turn this year if I didn't die beforehand, but I'm not sure I saw anything else coming along towards me.
I'm pretty sure 2011 was a tame travel year, but 2012--we saw the world together. Another continent, and the chance to go home again. Could I ask more? But there was. The West Coast again, and then the northeast coast with Maine. And then dropping down to Florida.
I went by last minute whim in the spring wondering what I was doing to a writing conference because I happened to do and enjoy an improv poetry reading night with a couple friends and a number of strangers in DC in summer 2011 and chanced on a lecture on essays and talked to one of the lecturers after and then on another whim in August applied to grad school. At the professor's school. Which is where I now sit writing this. Wow.
Somehow I happened into my first year in which not a single holiday was spent with my family, not a one. And yet I think this year has filled fuller with family and positive, bond strengthening family moments than any other in a long time past.
So many other things. Many of which are already chronicled here and will not be repeated in this post. But really, what an insane year. I don't know how 2012 isn't a tired year, after all it's done on my part alone. I mean, I'm tired just thinking about all this, and I cram a lot in, I think.
I have no idea what to expect of this next year. I know I should graduate from my county leadership program. I know I will be writing, a lot. A lot. I will be a full time professional and a full time student. Maybe I will learn to ski. I will watch my brother graduate and I will desperately miss the last couple years of having the very unexpected privilege of living nearby him and watching him grow up and become a bigger being and stealing a hug or a lunch with him. (or coffee and cookies)
I will also be loving the usage of student discounts again. I can't even say that enough.
But when I think about this year now closing, I have to say that really, I don't know what this next one will be. I hope it will be a little less sad, with a lot less loss (somehow!). But I also hope it will be also (still? anyways?) dynamic and surprising. Because 2012, it's been something else. Thanks for not going out in apocalypse.
