Posted December 31st, 2003 by Michelle

December 31st, 2003

It’s New Year’s Eve, 3:30 in the afternoon, and I am increasingly confident that I’ll be staying home in front of the TV tonight. The party to which I’m invited isn’t appealing enough to get me to drive for half an hour amongts drink-infested revelers. My good friend Elizabeth, who was to spend the evening with me, is instead spending it with her friends in Santa Barbara. Which is really all for the best, since my cold is still in full swing. I don’t know if I can negotiate a) feeling crummy, b) a long drive and c) people I don’t really want to see, just so I’m actually doing something on New Year’s Eve. A month ago, I had a vision of exactly this, me staying home and getting some writing done in lieu of getting trashed with people I don’t know very well. This holdiay usually disappoints anyway, so I don’t feel too bad about being alone. I do wish that I could be going to Sean and Jordi’s party. That does make me sad, that I can’t be there. But, y’know, I’ve made some choices, and this is just a factor in the outcome.

2003 has been a strange year for me. I’ve had one of the worst health-scare years in history (and some of them weren’t even scares, they were the real thing). I became a cyclist, I quit my job, I started a novel, I loved working on the novel, I trashed the novel, I almost fell in love, I recovered from almost falling in love with comforting speed, I vowed to never wait tables again, I moved to California… and ultimately gained more confidence in myself than I’ve ever had. My sweet Dad is continually telling me how proud he is of me for what I’ve already accomplished here. But what I’ve realized, more than ever, is that there is simply nothing I can’t do. Well, no, I could never be a calculus teacher but I have great confidence that anything to which I apply myself, that I actually care about and want to do, I will accomplish. So obviously very few things fall in that category, with those qualifications. But I’ve found great confidence in my abilites. Strange, considering the doubt that I’ve lived in for years now.

I have New Year’s resolutions, but they are private (unlike just about anything else in my life). And I know myself well enough to not say I’m “resolved”. What I am is hopeful. I have about ten very clear hopes for my own life… well, no, make that three, but with addendums and the like, and even a shred of hope for the 2004 election, and therefore, hopes for the world. I’ll be thinking about them at midnight tonight as I’m drinking a bottle of Schramsburg and eating leftover lasagna, by myself, in the heart of Napa Valley. Actually, who am I kidding. I’ll probably be asleep.

My great hope is that someday soon, somehow, I’ll be living near my brothers again, near the friends I hold so dear, and near both my mom and dad as well. I don’t know how this is possible, but it is my ideal, and since it is my wish list I’m going to do with it what I will. And really, “near” is a relative term, isn’t it?

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you all spend it with people dear to you. May 2004 hold even just a little promise for all of our wishes.