s novim schastyem

They say so often that the way you spend the New Year is indicative of the way your whole year is going to look. I call bullshit. My last New Year’s was spent at a lame pub crawl with two good friends by my side. I don’t remember midnight. I remember party hats, random encounters with nameless people, dancing, and some pictures. I remember trying forever to get a cab (note! A cab!) in Vancouver. I remember overpriced drinks and busses and vowing never to go to a pub crawl again. I don’t know how this all relates to now and China (which I feel has shaped my year, even though it only took 2/3 of it.) Isn’t it funny? I can’t remember my year before China, really. I remember clearly the day I left, and thinking that eight months was going to fly by, but always, always underestimating how quickly time passes. I remember the Whistler trip during Reading Break. I remember a semester which passed quickly among job applications and papers and realizations of my limitations and strengths. I remember being on the plane next to a Chinese man, and trying to hard to remember any words I might know in this strange and beautiful language. I remember thinking that these four people I was with were supposed to become my friends (and how they did.) It always amazes me how friendships form. How the distance between two people (how do you measure that?) just seemingly decreases, and you begin to feel safe. Safe. And Loved. I’ll never forget the time that Elena said to me “I love you. I realized that when you were leaving yesterday and I didn’t want to let go.” That kind of disarming honesty is the stuff I live for. The things that make us human and fragile and beautiful. The things that survive when you’ve given up your strategy and stopped putting on a front and peeled your layers of insecurity and all that’s there is y o u. How do people get closer, and how do they grow apart? How do you measure this distance? In feet and meters and inches? In memories and mindframes? It always strikes me when something changes and you can physically sense how something has changed between two people. Some mix-up in the chemistry of feelings and emotions and then things just aren’t the same. I remember getting a text message from Marina which said “kisses change things.” And I thought about that for so long and realized that she’s right. It can be the most subtle change, but it’s something that will always exist between you and that person and your lips. You just can’t gauge that kind of change in the same way you measure sugar when you make cookies of when you want to know what the change in temperature was between morning and day.