I have only two emotions: careful fear and dead devotion.
My mom’s friend has a Christmastime tradition in which she and her family members share their best and worst moments of the year. My family participated in a more lighthearted exercise over Christmas dinner; my five-year-old cousin conducted a poll with questions such as “What’s your favorite breakfast food?” and “What’s your favorite name?” And it wasn’t always easy to think of answers to those questions! Ranking all the year’s moments seemed even more daunting.
But, then again, it’s pretty easy to think in extremes. Here we go.
The Worst of 2015: Blood, Death, Panic
It won’t serve anyone for me to actually detail my worst moment of 2015 so I’ll describe it in five words: blood, panic, cry, doctors, regret. Alright, then.
That was almost a year ago. I definitely got off to a rough start with 2015. Last January, I was injured, cold, and (mostly by choice) cut-off from a lot of social comforts. But even as the weather warmed and I started running and going out and figuring out things again, everything wasn’t coming up roses or even dandelions. Because even when I’m having fun and enjoying life, my brain likes to conspire against me to tell me that everything is wrong or is about to be very soon.
A very truncated list of things that I anxiously obsessed over this year*: asbestos, food poisoning, terrorism (the homegrown kind because of my job and the international kind because of my city), antibiotic-resistant staph infections, being trapped in enclosed spaces, debilitating STIs, botulism (not even 100% certain what that is but I can’t read an article or internet comment about a disease without convincing myself that I will get it), elevator accidents, losing/damaging expensive technology, stalkers, and the ever-present fears of cancer (especially the kinds that can be prevented and would therefore be my own fault for contracting), fire, and bedbugs. It’s a wonder I ever leave my apartment and interact with living things.
*Note: Most of these things never actually afflicted me and the ones that did left no permanent damage.
Let’s just hide under the covers a little while longer...
And worrying about these things--while doing nothing for my ability to sleep and prohibiting me from ever staving off calamities with a positive mindset--has nothing on the actual horror that so many people are living through right now. Ancient ruins, concert halls, health offices, playgrounds...nowhere is safe, no life is sacred. I know there is nothing particularly unique about human destruction of human life but there is something new about the constant bombardment of information about it. It’s a wonder any of us ever want to interact with one another...
The Best of 2015: #blessed, #travel, #therapy works
Of course, given that none of my worst fears came to fruition and that I’m truly blessed (not just hashtag-blessed but maybe also that) in so many ways, there was a lot of good in this year.
Best moment? Sitting seaside in Positano, Italy, with incredible food, drinks, and friendship. BOOM.
And there are lots of runners-up moments from that trip and others--see basically any photo entry I posted this year. I also had positive new experiences with taking a writing class and coaching cross country. I strengthened bonds with old friends and made some new ones. Plus, I met my dog-sister, Tandy!
Besides those stand-out moments, there was a lot of hard work that went into this year that wasn’t necessarily fun but was necessary. I got rid of a lot of obsessive habits and expectations! Yes, I still have some obsessive thoughts (see above) but I also beat myself up less for having them.
So while it may be that time again--The Winter Solstice, the end of the calendar year, a time for reflecting and closing, a time for purging--I don’t want to! Maybe it’s the mild weather. Maybe it’s the number of mass purgings of human life that have been depicted and discussed on every screen for weeks. And maybe it’s that I’ve been purging all year. Bad habits, bad mindsets, bad company. None of that work is finished, of course. But right now I don’t feel the need to burn all the crops and sacrifice the livestock. Right now, I’m ready to open up and let new things in.
