I loathe the obligatory year-end blog post—that tired tradition of droll reflection and forced optimism. I’m at that age (31!?!) where New Year’s feels less like a fresh start and more like a bureaucratic reset. Sure, I’ll never turn down a reason to clink a champagne flute or make out with my new husband at midnight. But the sentiment’s been soured by the creeping awareness that time is just a human trick—an agreed-upon construct to keep trains running on time. January 1st is just a checkpoint on an endless loop. Nothing really changes, except I get older, people get dumber, the world gets louder, and both my regrets and the weather grow more extreme.
That said, 2008 wasn’t half bad. My work life leveled out—two solid tech writing gigs and a reliable rotation of three-day weekends. I married a truly wonderful man and celebrated not once, but thrice: with my family in Pennsylvania, with his in France, and just the two of us in Spain. The credit crisis didn’t eat my savings, and homeownership no longer feels like a pipe dream. And—for the first time in eight years—I feel something dangerously close to hope for this country.
So I’ll end this last post of the year without a “Top Ten” list, mostly because I’m currently incapable of judging whether anything I write is even comprehensible, let alone good. Wait for next year (she promises, again, with excellent intentions and questionable follow-through).
In the meantime, here’s to a warm, fuzzy New Year. And in 2009, I hope you go after what you want—loudly, boldly, maybe even a little sneakily. Dream bigger. Get messier. Be wild and audacious and deeply unserious. As Mick told Rocky, “You’re gonna eat lightning, and you’re gonna crap thunder.”
