Twenty Fifteen

At the end of 2013, I had decided – thanks in part to a horrifying familial experience of the 2012/13 NYE – that I was going to sit at home alone with some Redbox movie and a bag of popcorn to ring in the new year. When I told some friends, they said I couldn’t: "You can't spend NYE alone at home." I ended up going out in Virgina with a group of now-acquaintance friends. I had an alright time, but couldn’t shake the feeling that I would have rather been on my couch, a desire which grew exponentially when another friend showed up to that bar. That one that thought he’d bring his brother to me for me to bang since I made one with him drunk the summer before and his brother was about to go into basic training. All that happened was that I DD’ed for them, and thus got stuck sharing a blow up mattress with said brother, while his snoring roared in my right ear and I begrudgingly didn't sleep.

The following day I had to wait a very long time to get someone to drive me back home since their house was nowhere near the metro. All of that was annoying, but at least they were alive and safe. I did my good deed. I grumbled into 2014.

This year my good deed on NYE accomplished both what I wanted and perhaps what someone else needed. This year I was going exactly what I wanted to do. I was spending NYE at home. And to include a good deed, I invited any “orphans” to join me. No one showed up, so good for them and good for me. I finally got to do what I wanted and not what is “supposed to be.”  I rang in the New Year in yoga pants, on my couch, having downed almost an entire pizza by myself, while purchasing bras on Amazon at midnight to celebrate the ball drop I didn’t even have on the TV. Then a housemate and I popped a bubbly and played Wii for hours. This morning we had a New Years day waffle and mimosa pajama brunch in the comfort of our own home. It was just what I had wanted.

Upon a short retrospection of 2014, it seems to be a very appropriate end to this year. It hasn’t been a particularly adventurous year. I haven’t left the country; I’ve barely left DC, which is quite a change from a girl that spent the past five years barely home: First traveling all over the country, then the world. This year I went to Seattle and Boston and Nashville and that’s about it. So strange to think that the year before, that would be something that spanned a month. So strange to think I’m planning. (I am not a planner.)  And the plan has been just to wait. Patience is something I have become keenly aware of this year; resting at the feet of some sort of fated destiny. I have come to accept and covet that not every year has to be marked with tremendous occasions to be momentous or important; the little things add up, nurturing a patient mind.

No one thinks I’m moving. Not that their opinions matter and also not that I can blame them, as I’ve been saying I’m going for years, but I know I am on my way somewhere. However - and particularly this year - the universe has intervened; be it with money or the prospect of love or my cousin happening to have a spot in her house or all of the things that seemed to have divinely intervened. But all this stagnation – marked with moments of tremendous personal growth and recognition of past lessons learned and put to use – is leading to something. Something I don’t know. And something I won’t know I wanted until I have it.

I feel now there are very good things that lie ahead of me despite (or perhaps because of) those moments trapped in a provincial monotony. But bored, I have never been. Itching to go, yes, but I’m planning; waiting; filling my time with people and stories and practice and life. Because the things that have happened this year have been with such obvious purpose, but where they are leading to, I have yet to see. What a thrilling way that is to saunter into twenty-fifteen.