One Year

We forget sometimes how long a year actually is.

All years are long. They are eventful, and painful, and absolutely nothing like what we imagine they will be on New Years Eve.

Last year, when 2012 came to an end and 2013 began, I stood in front of a fire and burned the words "The End of the World". My cousin suggested it. The metaphor referred to both the Mayan apocalypse and my own tendency to focus on mundane events as if they held earth shattering consequences.

But that wasn't really the end of a year and the beginning of another. Technically, chronologically, yes. The year we were all supposed to die had ended. We could pat ourselves on the back and celebrate that we had made it through. But, for me, nothing had really ended. Nothing had really changed.

My ending came a month and a half later. One year ago today.

I could write about what's happened to me in that year. It was a lot. More than I knew, or ever would have imagined could happen in a year. But I've already done that. I've thought about it, and talked about it, and probably made it more significant than I should have. That's what you do, I suppose.

One year later, and I find it surprisingly difficult to be retrospective. Is that a good thing?

It's cold in New York. Colder than it was a year ago. It's clearer now, but changed. I feel like it's been forever since I've been here...but I was really only gone for a year. Less than that, actually. I feel like I've lived an entire separate lifetime - like I've been born, then died, then come back to exactly what I had before. Can you live an entire lifetime and come back exactly the same?

I doubt it.

But you can sit around and revel in your change. In my case, being a year removed from the early hours of February 17 is anything but bad. If I feel myself being pulled back to it, I can just remind myself of that other life I led, and it's a bit easier to force myself away again. It gets easier the long I'm away from it, and I suspect it will continue that way.

But it's inevitable that being exactly a year away from something will also, somehow, pull you back to it with a greater force ever before. All the progress you made is suddenly both readily apparent and meaningless. You can try to run away, and you're very capable of doing so, but the date makes the memory slightly quicker.

So, whether I like it or not, February 17 will forever be my new year.