Many hold onto their life stories a little too tightly in their studies, taking a seat with the book in hand and attempt to spill ink over the pages. They forcefully make beginnings and ends to weave and ease whatever chapter pains the moment. When something becomes too intense or too long to the point that one wants to take the pen into one’s own hands; cut one’s hair, buy a new journal, redecorate, exfoliate, spring clean, everything clean, everything new – until it feels anew and reset. This is always especially evident during the new years when everyone wants a fresh start in the midst of winter… it has always felt similar to wanting to set up camp in the middle of a snowstorm, forced and unwise. It makes more sense to start new things at spring when everything else is blooming and you yourself become more uplifted with death loosening grip.
Despite my own mixed confusions, I sat with my dear Pumpkin and talked about how each new years sets the tone for the rest of what is to come. When I reflected back on these past years, I did see the correlations of new years somewhat foreshadowing its year. Some years would be spent alone in my room, enjoying the comfort of my own space and myself, but still trying to hide the annoyance at the incessant laughter and music that echoed my walls – these were the years that I would often use isolation as a frequent and destructive tool. Then there were other years where I would end up a drunken mess on someones bathroom floor jumping in and out of different moods and vomiting out truths to anyone with ears and a comforting smile – these were years of being completely stepped on by others as I lean into the warmth delusion of passivity.
The new years of 2024 was very different; I was on family vacation and had spent my new years with a tipsy flush dancing across the warm breeze and bright stars. I had missed my digital new years kiss with my girlfriend back home but continued all spontaneous festivities. This year was full of risk taking, spontaneity, new people, new places, new adventures, new new new! 2024 has been one of the best years so far and I desperately wanted to continue this good streak by having a splendid new years to remember, and thankfully I do remember it… even after the accident.
The night was fabulous at first! Surrounded by many friends, we dined with full glasses and shiny cutlery – hippies dressed like royalty was the night. Drunken songs rang the air as everyone read from homemade songbooks, orange caviar dots stretched across the table as residue from the appetisers and we all lifted that same table for dance. However, after the fireworks burned out, I headed to my second location of the night and as I was biking through the rain, with my scarf as a hood, I took notice of a bar to my left. I recognised the bar from a coworker party and then suddenly, a drunken man swerved his bike in full speed at mine and my head hit his steering and fell back with him and his bike tumbled over me. My jaw felt broken and I just sat there and said “one minute” when a woman came check on me. The man was barely aware of his own autonomy to recognise my shock. Once my mind and body unfroze I was left with the exploding pain of my skull cracking and my brain seeping out. Despite all that, I made it to the party and met happy faces and hugging arms with “where is the quietest room?”.
I eventually rode back home on my broken bike that scratched and scraped through the rain. My head was pounding and I knew that I could not stop because my balance would fail and my mood would wilt and die with it. I could not help but cry at the fact that I was not only alone, but also fallen into disaster, and that would be my year. Nobody had picked up when I called, and the friend around me were wrapped into their own boozed heads to notice mine. I do enjoy solving my own issues, but at that moment I felt like a rejected child who needed the warm comfort of a mother. Suddenly, I went from amusing myself in the weight of new years, to untangling from it. It did not feel like a start and would prefer not to foreshadow my year. I would like to stop pretending that the winter misery does not continue and instead let it take its course so that I can celebrate new beginning when my hair needs a trim, my old journal is out of pages and I start to see the green peep through gray city trails.
