We were blessed, but sad as we counted down to midnight. We cried that year, as we hugged and kissed, lit off fireworks, said good-bye to the hardest year of our lives, and allowed relief to wash over us as we just knew 2014 would be better.
As I reflect back on 2014, my mind is filled not just with the last twelve months, but with my 33 years of life. When one undergoes monumental changes, it forces you to look at the big picture. Twelve months, a year, simply is not big in my eyes anymore. These years...they fly.
When I was eight years old, my Uncle Tommy babysat us so our parents could go out on the town for New Year's. I couldn't wait to be grown-ups like them, getting dressed up and drinking champagne.
When I was sixteen, we all met at a local burger place and then rang in the New Year in a friend's basement. Some of us drank, some didn't. We were navigating our adolescence and freedom.
When 2000 came, despite all the hype and scare, my college-freshman self joined friends in a basement for a dress-up fancy party. We all lived through the turn of the century, but barely survived the cheap alcohol.
In my 20's, our friends rotated hosting in our condos and apartments in the city, pulling out and using our new china and silver from wedding registries, and feeling grown up and acting like typical yuppies.
One year, Jer and I stayed home the two of us. I made all of our favorite hors d'oeuvres and we watched It's a Wonderful Life. It was lovely.
This year, we will get dressed up again, and go to a dinner party at my best friend's home in the city. We will toast 2014 and look ahead to 2015, filled with hope and anticipation for learning the secrets only the months passing will allow us to hear.
As I look back on my 33 New Year's, the blink of an eye that my life truly is, I know this:
Life changes unexpectedly, beautifully, tragically, and swiftly in ways that we cannot wish to know or understand.
Fifteen years ago, when I was in my friend's basement, drinking Bacardi and Diet Coke, wearing a pink tube top and gray chiffon skirt, and dancing to Brittney Spears and Ricky Martin, my biggest dilemma was that I wasn't sure if I should end things with my high school boyfriend before we went back to college that January. I am grateful that I didn't know then what I know now.
We cannot imagine what God has in store for us. It is never exactly as we think it will be. We can hope, and pray, and dream, and try our damnedest to achieve our dreams, but we simply cannot predict what will be.
We will find ourselves changed by love, changed by grief, in situations we never believed would appear in our lives, stronger that we knew we were, sadder than we ever thought we could be, laughing through pain, loving harder and deeper, and learning how quickly life changes.
The peace that comes with joy and love after extreme loss is incomprehensible. It is deeper and more beautiful than the joy of an immature soul.
Celebrate 2014 this Wednesday night. Ring in 2015 with anticipation of great things. But also know that if 2015 isn't perfect, it will pass as quickly as you can blink your eyes...or maybe close them for a restful sleep filled with dreams of change...
New Year's 2009
"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then
Against the wind, we were running against the wind
We were young, and strong, we were runnin'
Against the wind"
-Bob Seger
