Signing off for 2017

It’s the close of calendar year.  I watch the sun set for the last time as a candle burns out, preparing to wash this year off me for the final time.  All are symbols of cleansing and renewal, and yet I fight to feel the magic that I thought I once knew.  I’ve befriended science.  I can tell you neurologically why new years resolutions don’t work, but know that all it will relieve you of is a sense of purpose.  Now that resonates.  I am a train off it’s tracks, a caterpillar with no blueprint, a light with no switch.

I started off this year with no home, four months into six without a bed, and finally found both.  I wanted a different job, and upon discovering stumbling blocks, I sought after a new place of work.  I wrote a play.  I took improv, played games for charity, and found a kitten who slowly became mine.  I found that new job, traveled the world, left my old work, and started at my new one.  I’ve since learned so much, the most pressing: how desperately I need to be acting.

I just started this chapter.  I’m finally able to feel confident during work hours.  I was broken by someone who claimed to matter and am still recovering.  I always get sick in the winter and feel like I can’t celebrate survival until spring.  This season feels how summer break used to when you were a kid.  Days stuffed with activities and naps, slowly waiting for the action to begin again.

This doesn’t feel like an ending.

I yearn to embrace the ritual, both witchy and simply social.  I want to feel like I have something truly remarkable to celebrate — but I don’t yet.  I have survived and accomplished a lot in this calendar year…but it is not enough yet.  That train has a destination, a butterfly waits to be hatched, the light longs to guide others.  I am not there yet.  I can write this letter, but I can not send it.  There is more story to tell.   Donc, à la prochaine, n’est pas au revoir; we are just getting started.

(my last piece of art for 2017.  See more here)