A Late December Ramble

So you start over. You get a new apartment in a new neighborhood. You move sadly and silently past the old boyfriend and go on dates you're not sure you really want to be on. You remember breath. You watch the calendar creep and move and you're sure you can't stop it but you're not sure how you really feel about that. This is good, right? Newness. You need to learn all the creaks of your home so that it is, just now, home. It is almost January. Almost the time of those resolution things, and you are supposed to look into your hand mirror and pick out the flaws. You are to spot them, positively identify them, and make a tangible, trackable plan to rectify them. Is that supposed to work? Does that work for anyone?
It is a tricky time of year, this. Jingle bells! Joy! Santa hats and eggnog lattes! I love this time of year. I really, really do. I tend toward the annoying side of humanness, living inside car ride dance parties, multi-colored fingernails, googly eyes faces on light switches, etc. My morning alarm is the song, "Good Morning," from Singing in the Rain. Though my writing can be rather melancholy and far too introspective, I love..I don't know...cheer. And late December.
Ooh, but that New Year gets you, doesn't it? This summer was fire, the fall was a blink and winter has just begun, but it is already time to put your thoughts into what you will do with the next June, September, Halloween. We are silly humans. Taking only a few days out of 365 to reflect. Spending the rest of them filling out new planners. I just realized that I do not have plans. It feels shaky. Like those moving bridges in a fun house where the walls move in optical illusion and you have to hold on just to stay upright. It is at once terrifying and awesome, ending in a question mark and an exclamation point. How did I get out of that? I want to go again!
This year is interesting in that a new start does not necessarily mean a new start. It feels new. Everything does. But this is what people do, right? You move out, you break up, you cut your hair, you get to step back from what the year was and decide what to keep and what to throw out, and it's like new paint. It's the same thing, really, but it shines and some of the scratches have been covered up. Historically, my new starts have entailed moving roughly 3,000 miles away from whatever it was that was. There is no fun house about it. It's a footbridge, suspended above clouds and the past and once it has been crossed, it falls.
So. This year. Progress as opposed to leaps. No sharp turns, here. The road I have come down is clearly visible from the one I am on.

Do not be upset by your past, especially if you can see it. Be it the last year or the last decade or an old lifetime, look at it. Hold it. Brush the dust off with your fingertips and look at your new face and be thankful for the wear. Wear is growth is a shrinking staircase. It can be easier to climb when you see both where you were and where you are going. And cheer on this time of year, when reflection is expected, required. Miss what was, love what is, and prep yourself for the funhouse bridge.

What. A. Scrooge.

Right now, I am being mocked by two things: A box of Christmas cards to fill with cheer and the gaping lack of cheer I am feeling. One is making me think of the other. The other is making me think of one. They are a halo of laugh track from a crappy sitcom.
I am one of the most Christmas-y people I know. Last year, the house was lit up (like a Christmas tree?) far too early, with green and red and gold and jingle bells and holiday music on Pandora. A glittering cocoon of cinnamon and pine. If I remember correctly, I even baked Christmas cupcakes for the housekeeping staff, which is an incredible commitment and even more incredible feat from a girl who prefers to make macaroni and cheese in a coffee maker and once tried to microwave an avocado. Ask any roommate I have ever had-- I LOVE Christmas.
So, what the eff, 2012?
I have written a lot about keeping my whimsical little self whimsical. It is a focus of mine, and a worthy one. It is my humble and too loud opinion that most of everyone takes themselves so seriously because that's what most of everyone else does. You can lose yourself if you're not careful. You can get vacuumed up into the world of rent and cell phone bills and tie pins. There's not much light in there. And apparently, there is no where to plug in Christmas lights.
I will be moving soon. To a little city studio by myself. How...real. I think it's freaking me out a little, even though it's just about one of the most exciting things I can imagine. To some extent, though I have been in Denver for a year now, this still feels like a made-up life. As if I will snap out of it and wake up in my tropical little tent, take a cold shower next to a tree frog, spray some deet on my flip-flopped toes and get back to life as usual.
But that's not going to happen.
And the reason Christmas felt so much more like Christmas in a place where it is 85 degrees and you string on your red and white bikini to feel festive is because that place was home. Temporary as it was, it was most definitely home. I have not allowed myself that in Denver. Despite the car purchased, the relationships developed, the mailing address changed, I have not given Denver the go-ahead to call me its own. If you are supposed to be at home for Christmas, but you're not totally sure that you actually have one of those, it makes some amount of sense to be in a holiday limbo.

So. Goal for the rest of this warmth-scented season, which I have spent my entire life completely in love with, is this, which is the essentially the same one I always have: Be here. Live here. Without my chest collapsing on my heart from the pressure of a sepia past and a blind future.

And decorate my new house like a Christmas bomb.
And write those damned cards.