Dear 2007,
Man, 2007, you were the garden of forking paths of years. Every time I try to stop and take stock of you I'm looking at a different year, like cross sections of a rock where all years are possible. Sometimes when I look at you you were the hardest, and sometimes you were the best, and in the places in between you were both in varying doses. I'm all mixed up about how I've felt about you.
December, certainly, has been a very hard month. The way the year is ending couldn't be more different than the way it started. My brain has felt softened this month, and everything has made me go all damp in the eyes. I have felt broken and incomplete and like a deep sea creature that might explode if brought to the surface.
I spent a good part of the year with what I can only describe as a broken heart, and in attempting to distract myself and recover I did a lot of things that surprised even me. And that was the part that was terrible--the surprise of feeling any such thing, since it snuck up on me, and all of the wrenching feeling that went with it. I spent much too much time this year trying to pretend that none of it was happening.
But that isn't the important part. And it's funny, because if things had gone the way I thought they might in January, everything would have been so different. So it's a good thing that life is smarter than me and also in charge, because I had so much fun this year. And that's what's important. There were Tuesday nights and Sunday brunches at Linda's, trips to New York and Vegas, driving fast around corners, rollerskating, drinking in the sun, the speakeasy, my ship in a bottle, drinking champagne and playing in the bubbles in a fountain, kissing lots of boys, falling in love with bands, obsessing about nature documentaries, a hot tub full of Swedish boys, and a ton of nights where I felt completely full of glitter. I think that I was more myself this year than ever before, less afraid. I've spent my time with people who don't look away when my edges are showing, and I'm thankful for it.
The unofficial motto of 2007 was Sleep When I'm Dead, and the results were ridiculous and amazing.
I think that it can be summed up like this: when Giacometti painted a portrait of James Lord he painted and repainted the canvas over eighteen days. In the finished piece Lord's head is detailed and accurate but the background and the rest of his body is merely sketched in. When it was finished he sat it down and walked down the hall to look at it from a distance and said, "Well, we've gone far. We could have gone farther still, but we have gone far. It's only the beginning of what it could be. But that's something, anyway."
But then there is also e e cummings: "Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles: they are by somebody who can love and who shall be continually reborn, a human being....Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question."
And somewhere between those two is 2007 and, with luck, more years to come.
love,
me
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