When The (Fire) Ball Drops

2014 was the longest, shortest, craziest, loudest, quietest, loneliest, bitchiest, sleepiest, most excitingly disastrous year of my life.  I have felt proud, capable, and motivated. I have felt lost, alone, and useless. I have made friends, lost friends, kissed friends and gone to the ends of the Earth for friends.  I have eaten out, slept in, jogged, skipped, crawled and lived.  2014 is almost over - and I could not be more thrilled.

Ringing in the New Year in 2014, I had this mantra: New Year, Same Me.  In light of the end of my relationship and the start of the new year, I was standing by the affirmation that I had not been the problemn- that we didn't break up because of anything I did.  It's not that I wasn't good enough for him, it's that we weren't good for each other.  Honestly, I stand by some of those thoughts today; however, the New Year, Same Me motto took an unexpected turn because I was totally, completely and ultimately wrong about myself.  I was not the Same Me in 2014.  In fact, I could not be more different.  I was wearing tighter clothes, drinking harder liquor, stomping around in higher heels, and singing at the top of my lungs.  My hair was blonder and longer and I was rough around the edges.  Guys were no longer approaching me at the bar because I seemed like the sweet girl-next-door, I was approaching them with a chip on my shoulder and a glass of whiskey in hand.

In the past year, I've also developed an incredible cool fear of commitment, closeness, and comfort.  I've been on dates with some of the nicest guys (like President Fitzgerald Grant, whom I have recently dumped, sorry again!) and some of the douchiest guys (shout out to the 6'9" ginger who asked me what my 'guilty pleasure' was before the waitress took our drink order).  No matter the guy, no matter the number of dates, I knew I was calling it off, and almost every time, I've been right.  I've kept a distance, pretending I just wanted to keep things casual.  No one meets my family - about that I was a stickler.  Any mention of "exclusive," "dating," or commitments made more than one week in advance were out of the question... which is interesting, because the Me of 2013 played those words on loop incessantly, consistently, over and over again, like a bad Colbie Caillat song. 

So, thank God 2014 is over and I cannot wait to meet the actual New Me when the ball drops.  Instead of the kerchief open-back cheetah print top and black coated jeans I tried to sport last year (thanks to my mom for not letting my ass out of the house), I will be wearing some variation of a generic black cocktail dress...not form-fitting. .  I will sip a beer, but not too many.  I will dance in a circle with my girlfriends, instead of dancing up on a guy I don't know.  And I will NOT be ordering any shots of Fireball. 

In 2015 I will only be happy and healthy.  I will only be kind to myself and others.  I will only be a person that I admire - a person that I am proud to be.  I honestly can't wait until the ball drops.  I have a feeling it's truly going to be a happy new year. 

Good Cheer and Appreciation

Each year on a Thursday in November, at dining room tables across the country, families gather to share a meal and give thanks.  My family is no exception.  Each year we say grace and then circle the table asking each family member what they are thankful for.  This year, however, we got to dig into dinner a little sooner than in the past.  My grandfather, the matriarch of our family, passed away in July of this summer, and now everything is different.

The onset of my childhood was based around Sunday nights.  Some of my earliest memories include sitting three across the front seat of my mother's red car that whistled as we drove to my grandfather's house once a week for dinner.  My father would post up in our kitchen, watching television on a small eight-inch screen and bid us adieu as my mom packed my sister and I into the car for family dinner.  I'm not really sure why my dad didn't come.... or maybe he did come... the memories are hazy and blend all ages together; but I sure remember the feelings of love around the dinner table at Papa's house.  Thanksgiving was Papa's holiday.  All seven of his children would make the drive, bring their children, and help prepare a delicious meal.  He was King of the Krols and no one thought otherwise.  Since my grandfather's passing, my mother's family has been at odds.  That's what happens in fragile families.  If the anchor that held all ships at bay is lost, they are carried by wind and see in different directions.  This year, Thanksgiving dinner will be enjoyed my mother, my aunt, her husband, and myself.  A small, intimate gathering, still inundated by feelings of love.

What I am most thankful for this year is a hidden lesson that I have found in my grandfather's passing.  My mother, brother, and sisters are a beautiful exception to the rule.  I am one of six children born to my father, but only one of two born to my mother; thus, the four eldest of my family are my half siblings, but I whole love them.  When my father passed away, it was truly a tragedy.  He lost his battle to lung cancer five days before Christmas 1999.  What I have learned in the fourteen years since my father's passing, however, is that my siblings had the option to run.  My dad was the anchor that kept my family at bay.  He was our common thread, our home base, and our gravitational pull.  Without him there, what glue did we have to hold us together?  To this day, I am not sure.  I was seven at the time that we lost my father, and from that point forward it never occurred to me that my sisters and brother could have stepped out of my life forever; that my mother could have decided not to love them as her own, not to see my nieces and nephews as her grandchildren....but luckily for me, that was not the case.  My family loves harder, deeper, and with more vigor than any family I have ever known.  It isn't about having a shared relative or a thoroughbred blood line that makes two people family; it is love.  It is values.  It is knowing that losing that other person would be losing a part of yourself.  At seven years old, I was not old enough to know who I loved, but I knew who loved me.  I am so beyond lucky to have been born into the family that I have. I have an incredible, awe-inspiring mother, three beautiful sisters, and a strong, handsome brother that care about me more than words can say, and for that I am undoubtedly eternally grateful.

I pray for those who are not surrounded by the same love and affection that I have had the fortune of indulging in over my last 21 years on this earth.  As for those who are as fortunate, I pray that they take that luck and transform it into good cheer and appreciation for our world and the people who create it.