Imperfect Circles: A Letter to a Passing Year

    Hello, 2014.
    Seems you're in your last week, ready to pass.
    I'd mourn but your memories are as close to immortal as we'll ever be.

    And we can't abandon your memories -

    - or the fact that we've lived through you -

    even as we cheer your end. You happened, so I might as well acknowledge your existence.
    Okay, stop. Wait a sec.

    Can I admit - can I just say - that you were kinda mean?
    I think of plane crashes and ISIS and World Vision and Ferguson and Peshawar - a waterfall of misery unleashed its fury inside you. I'm sure no year was much better, but certain individuals were alive in other years that aren't now because of the world being screwy and it's kinda cruel, you know? I wish you could have felt the pain, but you're a year, a chunk of an inanimate dimension I'm personifying, so I guess you can't.
     On a personal level, you're the year I lost my Mimi to a little bitch called vascular dementia. And I ... I really miss her.

    Yet...

    You're also the year I survived graduated college and started a PhD program in the ever intoxicating and intimidating organic chemistry.
    You're the year I experienced abandon and joy and people and dare-I-hope God in the Middle East. The year I started this blog and met some pretty cool people online.

    You're the year I embraced people.

    You're also the year I was blessed with Sushi and Myshkin, saint and sinner kittens, so that counts for more. Ahem.

    I started you so depressed I wanted to die. I'm ending you so depressed I feel as if scorpions are eating me from the inside out. #improvement.
    No, really, it is an improvement. At least I felt the light for eight months before the depression sucked me back.
     Because I experienced the light your year, I can't circle back to where I was. Your ending closes an imperfect circle and I'm thankful.

    You're ending and I think I'm supposed to feel super-hopeful and psyched and I don't.

    I do, however, feel like hanging out on ze Adelaster for a little while longer, however long and however infrequent that while may be.

    Who knows, I might be entering this new year curled up on the floor of a tiny bathroom, but at least I'm entering it.     

    Nothing may feel much different. But I remember the light and there are two kittens by my side.

Happy New Year and I love you all.

Kelley