Happy New Year

 It’s odd, but this is the best transition into a new year yet. No alcohol; I opted to fast instead. I gave my nephews a steady supply of kettle corn and hot cocoa with marshmallows but held to my resolve. I spent a good part of the day irritated, which fasting can do when I’m sensitive to smells and sounds already.

But I always find the depth of a fasting state meditative and I’m… grateful. Hopeful, but in that skeptical way that humbles me. That way where being too happy always seems to attract trouble, but secretly craving jubilance.

FYI, my favorite X-Men from the cartoons was, no contest, Jubilee. Rogue was a close second, but even as a kid, her power always struck me as tragic in every way that Jubilee’s was just comically absurd, but fuck it, all X-Women had attitudes that conquered all.

I don’t have a particular point or topic so why not wander where I may!

The new year doesn’t need a new or improved me. I’ve completely adored facets of myself come and gone but I don’t necessarily need one of those incarnations either. I just want here and now to continue to bring me fulfillment and hope. I want to utilize the time I have the best I can, from moment to moment, to not shackle myself in expectations and paralyze my potential. I want to trust in who I am now, to remember not to anchor my happiness to fleeting thing. To creep away from the solace of retail therapy, if only because I am content with what I have and it shouldn’t be squandered or taken for granted. I just send a silent hope to now and later to let these things be used well and fully. That the anxiety and uncertainty they were collected with be made into something powerful and beautiful and humble and simple. That what they become is their true potential and never be disappointed by the lessons they have for me.

I just want the journey. Always. Whatever a cliché it might be, I’ve always stood by the thrill of the journey, not the destination. And how often the magic lie in the places in between, outside of the foreseeable plans and in the goodness and purity of that mystery. Just like in California, it wasn’t the trip to Disneyland or the anime convention that dazzled me; it was the sunburnt Arizona tourist who told me that his kids had tattoos too but he’d always been afraid to get one and the gay black stranger seated outside at a taco joint who caught my eye and instantly greeted me with ‘hi, beautiful!’. I owe some kindness to the world because of these people anchoring me, reminding me that the unknown can be spectacular and worth looking for. The slobbering toddler who giggled while I zoned out on a bench during a lunch break and gently touched my eyebrow ring in wonder and the weathered woman who loved the pink ribbon on my luggage and told me what it was like to work in a mental asylum decades ago. For giving me a perspective that kept me honest and sentimental and worthy along the way. For all the potential in the journey to come, keeping me humble and proudly myself—bring on the new year!