Nine more days to go before this year draws to a close. Over the years, I have tried to spend New Year’s Eve in a new place. I have watched fireworks in Kuala Lumpur and Kathmandu. I have seen the night sky draped with stars in Jordan’s Wadi Rum. I have watched Hong Kong put on quite the show. Shanghai try to replicate it. I have slept through it in sleepy Chiang Mai and Myanmar. I have come to the eventual realization that the place is new only if the mind is new as well.
When I think of “This Year Was..,” I am struck by a myriad number of emotions. That’s when I realize it. This Year Was Emotional. Everything I did seemed to be tinged by emotions. I left my job in a whirlwind of swirling emotions. I tried to understand more of my emotions during meditation. I went through the beautiful emotion of connecting and reconnecting. I went through the emotion of hurt, anger, pain, shock, and bewilderment. I experienced vulnerability even while fighting with it. I wrestled with the emotion of insecurity, of doubting my decisions, and feeling alternately in awe of myself and disgusted with myself. I tried to express emotions, and I tried to suppress them. This year just blew the lid off every single emotion and left me shivering naked on a mountain top, snow gently falling while an approaching storm almost blows me off underneath a sky that seems laden with the sun. It was the sort of year that made me get in touch with my weakest self and to recognize it. It was a year that gave me hints of the strongest version I could be as well. It was a year that made me see the mistakes I continue to make. I was human. I was flawed. I acted under pain and reacted with anger. I melted under kindness and discovered compassion. It was a year that started in an oath of kindness and left me wondering if harshness is right, instead. It left me raw. It left me knowing my self. This Year Just Was…
And I am happy it was. Because despite everything, it was worth it.
This is the second year in a row that I’ve travelled somewhere for new year’s eve. Last year we spent nye in Germany with friends, because I was under the impression that the night needed to be spent with people I care about. This year my husband and I are going to be on our own. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. It was my choice, but… *shrugs* It almost feels like I’m excluding my family/friends from my holiday, not that we would do anything more than go out to eat with them. Or, knowing my luck, as a nanny, I would probably end up working that night.
2016 wasn’t my favorite year. Like you said: lots of emotions. I’m glad you’ve come to terms with the year. I don’t think I have yet. Of course, I’m not sure how optimistic I’m feeling about 2017 either. I guess we’ll see what happens. :-/
Cute shot of you with your dog! 🙂
I hope you had a beautiful Christmas Eve with your husband, Mandy. I am not sure how optimistic I feel about 2017, either. I try not to think about it. I guess we will be discussing 2017 by this time next year? :-). I hope we will. I am glad you chanced upon my blog and we are having this “comment-conversation” on each other’s blogs.