the whole thing

OK, so it is time for my annual look-back New Year’s post, I suppose. I was excited to write it last week, and I should’ve just done it then because but now that excitement has faded. But oh well, it is the first day back at work and it is noon and I have not done any work yet, so let’s just keep this procrastination train going.

I celebrated New Year’s this year with the reunification of my two best friends—me, Chelsea, and Kirsten, together again, for the first time in years. Us, along with Chelsea’s husband Nick and Justin rung in the new year together at a semi-empty dive bar with free pool that handed out complimentary large glasses of champagne ten minutes before the ball drop. We headed there after a hearty family-style dinner at Chelsea and Nick’s apartment, which began—with prompting from Kirsten—by us holding hands and going around the circle to talk about New Year’s resolutions. We drank champagne and mulled wine and Justin read Kirsten’s aura in the corner of Nick and Chelsea’s kitchen. It wasn’t crazy and mostly low-key but perfect for my almost-thirty sensibility at this point. 

On New Year’s day we headed out to Kirsten’s parent’s house for brunch, at which point we had to say goodbye to her so she could fly back to her life in Japan. I went home to do yoga, starting with a video that was intense but quickly realized I was in no mood to do fast-paced, sweat-inducing yoga, so I switched to an uncomfortably slow restorative yoga class that was more like meditation with some slight stretching. I AM TRYING TO LISTEN TO MYSELF BETTER. I don’t always have to be pushing myself to the brink, I am trying to listen to my body and give it what it needs. So yes, slow yoga, which felt somewhat like a cop out but at the end I felt completely relaxed and restful and alert and happy. 

Then I went to Justin’s, where he made me maybe the most gorgeous meal he’s made so far? I told him I wanted to eat black-eyed peas for New Years (which is supposed to be good luck) with polenta and greens, so he made this roasted red pepper, tomato, garlic sauce with perfectly fried polenta cakes and garlicky kale and black-eyed peas and piled them in a triangular tower on my plate in the most beautiful way, and it was incredible. Afterwards, we folded cranes together and then laid together on his bed, him drawing and me reading. He rolls from one side of his body to the other, and I move my legs out to reach him. "I’m sorry, I want to be touching you," I say to him. It is a quality that always annoyed Eric, but Justin just pulls my legs close to his body, then goes back to his drawing. My heart swells. It is good. 

This has been a year of change, which feels weird to say now because my life now feels strangely stable, settled sweetly into a new routine that feels uncharacteristically normal. But it’s true, my life now is wildly different from my life at the beginning of 2013, which I rung in with a cross-country ski on Mt. Hood with the boy who held me close for four years despite our differences. FROM THE BEGINNING, though, from the very beginning of the year I knew I was in for big change, bracing for it. It is weird, maybe hindsight is 20-20, but looking back through my posts from this year, it is very clear I knew it was going to happen. 

THIS WAS A FUCKING TOUGH YEAR, mostly this summer, the summer from hell. It is usually my favorite season, but between all the crazy intense drama going on with Portland Zine Symposium that required help from a trained professional to sort out (not to mention endless bouts of crying / anxiety / fear / self-doubt), Chelsea and Nick occupying my one-bedroom apartment for two weeks during the busiest time of year, the actual zine symposium and the complete deterioration of my relationship, MOVING into a new house in a new neighborhood with a new roommate, and the resulting depression from my heartbreak, it fucking sucked all around.

I have also been struggling with my job for over a year now, complaining about it endlessly all year. It took a significantly worse turn around the same time as a my breakup when I was switched to a new editor with whom my relationship is cordial at best after having worked with an editor who was basically my cheerleader for the past six years. It has become clear now that he is the main reason that my job was tolerable to me, and since then it has become pretty much impossible for me to engage meaningfully in this work. In fact, it actively makes me miserable. 

Also notably in May I hurt myself at Crossfit and was unable to continue with it, going through physical therapy for a few months before giving up altogether. My back still hurts on a daily basis, and I have been unable to find a suitable replacement for the kind of physical activity I was getting despite my best efforts. 

So. Most things have changed. But I have also found that it is during times of darkness when light is most visible. Nick and Chelsea feeding me and giving me a place to come to and feel safe in. JUSTIN, of course (more about this later), and Kirsten, from far away, keeping me sane. Kristin doing yoga with me and giving me a shoulder to cry on. I have so many amazing friends in this community that has grown up around me in a city I love. I am learning how to take care of myself even better and have taken active steps to be good to myself (getting myself a therapist I like, doing the things that make me happy, and forgiving myself for my faults and failures). 

And weirdly enough, the biggest of all these changes—me and Eric breaking up—is perhaps the biggest gift I gave myself this year, even though it feels like a gift from hell. Despite how much pain is wrapped up in it, it is a decision that probably should have been made long ago and one that has opened the door to True Love, whatever that may be. It is me accepting the fact that I deserve to be with someone who is capable of making me HAPPIER than Eric was able to, despite his best efforts. Allowing myself to find someone who can connect with me emotionally in a way that he was never able to. 

Which brings me, of course, to Justin. As I was doing my annual read-back-through-all-my-entries, it was incredibly surprising to me how much Justin shows up. It is clear that I have always been drawn to him, that our relationship has been tortured because of that attraction and the fact that I couldn’t act on it. It feels weird to be so deep into a new relationship so quickly after getting out of an incredibly long relationship. It makes it hard for me to trust it, but at the same time, the feelings between us are undeniably strong. He is the most caring, emotionally present, in tune partner I have ever had, and I know his love for me is deep. 

When I get home from my trip on the east coast, after 9 days of separation, we lay in bed together staring into each other’s eyes, as we do, and I ask him what he wants. "To marry you," he tells me, which is not a surprise, but when he says it I get butterflies in my stomach. I’m not scared, nor is it a surprise. He has said it before. "This year?" I ask him, and he shrugs. "Stranger things have happened," he says. "Not this year," I say, but he’sright, I know. We have only been dating three months, but I am 28 and he is 35, and we are more than old enough for this to be a possibility, which is just weird. 

Don’t worry, dear readers, I am not planning on eloping anytime soon, and I have concerns that need to be addressed before I can even consider the idea of co-habitating with this man, but the idea of living together is something I think we may try out this year, if things continue down this path. Stranger things have happened. 

So, new year’s resolutions. I want to hang out with Nick, Chelsea, and Hopskotch more. I want to find a good exercise alternative for me. I want to find a new job, complete my Saturn return. And as I always, I want to be good to myself, make good healthy decisions physically, emotionally. I want to be kind. I want to live with my heart open. I want to let go of my stress and anxiety as much as possible. I want to continue to make changes that are good for me even if they are hard in the moment or even for many moments afterwards. Remove toxins, in all forms, from my life. Forgive. 

There was really only one quote that stood out to me as I re-read everything that I wrote in here this past year, which I will leave here as a parting note—something for me to keep in mind always. Happy new year, all of you. I have high hopes for 2014. It is going to be OK. 

"Being outside always reminds me that everything else is bullshit and doesn’t matter. What does matter: the rising and setting of the sun, the way the sky changes color, the clouds moving behind the trees far in the distance, the crystals of snow on tree branches, Douglas firs stretching high into the air and swaying in the wind. We are a tiny part of a huge universe and yet we so often get consumed by these tiny parts to the point where we think they are the whole thing. But they’re not." – February 6, 2013