It's That Time of Year...

It’s that time of year, yes, when the world falls in love, but also, for reminiscing about the last 365 days.  

And what 365 days!  It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone inevitably says that the year “flew by” (can we use another expression please?) - but that was true, at least, of the last 6 months.  The first 6 months of my year were occupied by finishing OB/GYN residency and surviving my oncology rotation without threatening myself with bodily harm.  That passed by about as quickly as Tiny Tim hobbling through Times Square during the holiday/tourist season - with the equivalent amount of pain, exasperation, and disproportionate, barely masked anger.  

[One of the notes attached to a lovely farewell gift from my equally lovely interns:  “I hope that when you get to Philly you won’t be such an angry bird!  We love you!”]

Certainly a lot has changed in the last few months.  

I switched from:

•  a major city with short streets and long avenues, to a slightly less major one with long streets and short cross-streets named after tall trees in lieu of aforesaid avenues
• a studio to an apartment with an actual room (and a washer and dryer, oh joy!)
• 24 hour calls almost every weekend to having a weekend, as a human being should
• a PC to a Mac (hello, rest of the civilized world!)

I travelled across country and globe to places previously unknown (above the Arctic Circle to get mauled by 8 impossibly adorable husky puppies, to arid Vegas to ride more limos than I have ever in my life).  I met a lot of new, strange, amazing and lovely people, everywhere.

I had about 50% - nope, 65% - of my friends get engaged, saw some of them have children (not literally - I feel that needs to be clarified), and probably because of this onslaught of diamond rings and babies on Facebook, finally reached an age where I feel I should probably get serious about life.

[Although, feel ≠ do, especially with my particular brand of avoidant personality disorder]  

Often, I don’t feel as though I’ve accomplished anything from year to year.  (Slogging through always felt like an apt depiction of years past.)  But if I really think about 2013, it's been a particularly packed year, not necessarily or particularly life-changing, but filled with a lot of little, subtle things that actually add up to quite a lot.  It’s a lovely and pleasant feeling, this sense of minor accomplishment.  

Also, it was one of my New Year’s resolutions last year (“actually go DO something, you reticent, daydreaming bum!”), so that’s at least one resolution that I actually accomplished.  

I have not, however, learned to write short, succinct sentences.  

(I will never be Hemingway, for better or worse.)

So in the beginning of this next year, before anything gets 'resoluted,' I’m going to write about the best of 2013, and the worst - things that inspired, things that really made me question humanity - not because I think my opinion is that valuable.  But we live not in flesh and blood and bone, but in music, memories, and fleeting thoughts, and passing experiences, and as the year flees by, so do my recollections.  Our tendency is to forget.  That’s something I don’t ever want to do. 

Maybe the fragility of the last year can be crystallized into words, last a little longer, be reflected on and pondered for a little while more.  Maybe it’ll - eventually, inevitably - fade away (although evidently anything ever published on the internet can never be fully erased).  

But I hope that either way, it’ll be interesting, entertaining, maybe thought-provoking, and as we pass from memories of the year past to the hopes for the new year, you’ll be along for the ride.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve - Zooey Deschanel & Joseph Gordon-Levitt