twenty-twenty four

this is something of a love letter to new year’s, my favorite holiday.

it’s something of a call from the doorframe of the home i call myself. me yelling out, telling me to come home.

it is an act of honoring and remembrance to all of the dreams and fantasies, the visions of my life at this point it time, that I had when I was just a child.

it is a frozen moment in time to grieve deeply for the venomous world we inhabit. Where the “wrong kind” of infant, child, woman, man, dies - the “wrong” people die, for anyone to do anything about it.

it is half-poem, half-prose. half-finished, but full effort. it is words intertwined with hopes and dreams for the year that did not come true, but a couple that did.

—

it took days to convince myself to write this. in my mind, i peeled myself off the floor, laid out like spilled, viscous liquid, to be able to write this. blinked through the covid brain fog and exhaustion, the disappointment that another new year’s would be tainted by illness, isolation, and boredom. sifted through my endless barrage of anxiety - especially the nagging thought that being sick to ring in the new year is desperately unpromising.

all of that to really not have too much to say, but wanting to come back to this — to writing, to thinking and feeling out loud for anyone to hear. Maybe if I publish just one newsletter to end the year, next year i’ll be able to follow through. Next year I’ll commit to two a month, it’ll really take off, and i’ll have something to be proud of. maybe, maybe, maybe.

reader, are you hearing these words in my voice? is the meaning I intend to convey, the picture I hope to paint appearing in your mind? reader, am i standing alone in front of an audience of none? in a storefront alone, a glass barrier dividing us, but exposing my thoughts for passersby to observe and leave behind?

I think i’m done asking for affirmation that I make sense.

—

the new year is a time for resolutions, they say. i am assaulted by the television, commercial after commercial with before-and-after weight loss transformations. I don’t let them affect me as much anymore, I think.

My spotify wrapped called me an alchemist. the app’s algorithm and the brilliant minds that built it have found a way to perfectly categorize the data informed by my listening habits and label me. (i’m not going to get neurotic about it, i don’t really care). isn’t it neat how an entire year can lead to one single word. an entire year can be wrapped neatly with a bow, finished, and shoved into the ether. better come up with something bigger, brighter, more innovative, next year, mr. spotify.

okay, so i’m an alchemist. why not. but also, why? why try to capture 365 days into a single category, a single characteristic, a single identity. yes, the year was bad, but it was also good, and boring, and exciting. everything and nothing at all. i don’t care to make a broad sweeping generalization about entire swaths of time. what good does that do?

so i find something in between; the year had its ups and downs, and i learned what i could. i cried, i laughed, i lived days that felt like entire years, and at the same time, it feels like january 1st, 2023 was just last week.

—

this year, i want to dye my hair. i want to take a surfing class, and a pottery class, and maybe a stained glass-making class too. i want to see kaytranada live. i want to travel the world and laugh deeply on the shores of a beach i’ve never been to. i want to see the northern lights in iceland or norway with my mom. i want to run with my dog on a snow-covered beach. i want to tell people who hurt me to go fuck themselves - in the moment - not in a carefully curated and closely vetted text message that sandwiches my hurt in kindness. i want to make a million mistakes, cry about them, forget about them, and then make a million more.

i want to act without thinking, and embrace the freedom of carelessness. can i do that without losing myself?

i want to not feel like it’s the end of the world when i hurt someone, but i don’t think i know how to do that. i want to let the fire of rage and anger burn without buckets of cautious rumination trying to put it out. can i do that? will i do that?

—

in my mind, there is a little girl staring up at me with big green eyes. she cries a lot but can’t quite articulate why. she walks on a tight rope, wrapping herself in cushion to avoid any possible misstep. she grows up on the tight rope, but it wears thinner and thinner each year. there’s a sidewalk just under her, let’s jump to solid ground.

—

the ball will drop and the clock will strike twelve, and nothing will really change, except some numbers on my phone. i have convinced my family to get a little dressed up and make a nice dinner. i will sit under the table and eat 12 grapes. i don’t own red underwear.

we will call grandparents and aunts and others to wish them happy new year, and then go to bed. it will be boring, and anticlimactic, and writing this, the exact flavor of lonely i will feel at midnight, watching people on tv share a kiss with a lover, sits in my chest in anticipation.

and it will be ok, i think. i will have a whole year to feel every feeling i dream of when 11:59 turns to 12:00, and 23 turns to 24.

—

happy new year, friends. i’ll see you again soon, with more to say and for you to read.