I resolve.

2013 was quite a year. Much of me is glad to say "good riddance" to much of it, but it had a few redeeming qualities. Usually, I get upset when people spend New Year's Eve bitching about the "worst" year; I used to post to Facebook all the great moments that proved those people wrong. I'm sure I could find a dozen or so fantastic highlights--weddings, graduations, celebrations, relationships--but it just seems marred by the deaths of some people I dearly love, and the ends of some great things, and the never-ending-ness of some less-than-lovely things. I'm practiced in vagueness.

If you're reading this, you likely know me well enough to know that I suck at being "present." I spend inordinate amounts of energy rehashing past events--for better and for worse--and then planning and worrying about the future. The next few months are full of future-oriented events--approval, assignment, commencement--but are also the last semester of seminary, which I want to revel in very much! And while I do not know what the next few months will bring, I don't want to be so focused on June that I miss January through May! I have a really good thing going right now and I'd like to ride that into the new year. And I do't want to focus on what happens to my relationship when I graduate and move--I want to live in it between now and then! He deserves that, and so do I!

2014 has awesome written all over it--weddings, graduations, babies, celebrations, relationships--but I want to do each day as it comes. I resolve to be present to those I love and to myself this year.

Let's go.

In 2012, I...

...drove 8,006 miles.

...lost 43 pounds.

...spent 42 hours and 18 minutes on airplanes.

...travelled to and/or through 7 states besides my home state of California. [TX, NC, AZ, NV, UT, CO, OH]

...visited 1 foreign nation. [Mexico, via Texas]

...saw 13 movies in theaters. [Possibly an all-time high.]

...attended 3 concerts. [Definitely an all-time low.]

...attended 2 weddings.

...preached 13 sermons.

....wrote 118 pages for class. [I only had one semester of classes.]

...read 4 books that weren't for school or work.

...spent $240.04 on coffee.

...spent $963.92 on gasoline.

...donated $430.39 to progressive candidates and causes.

...sent 6530 text messages.

...used 7.2GB of data on my iPhone.

...wrote 83 blog posts (84 if you count this one).

...tweeted 3,104 tweets.

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And what a year it was, y'all.

It's kind of fun to compare the stats to last year, but some of them don't correlate, and some categories are missing. Like burritos, for example, because I totally forgot about keeping track -- mostly because I ate significantly fewer.

Weird that my iPhone data usage is identical to last year. Apparently I am very consistent? And last year, usage for minutes was available but not texts, and this year it's the opposite? The AT&T website is baffling.

My mileage is way less than last year -- commuting 90 miles round trip for CPE really padded that stat in 2011. And my commute for internship is like 3 miles, so there's that. Plus, I drove out to CO this year, which is far, but not as far as three round trips between Berkeley and ENC, like in 2011.

I didn't tally bar tabs this year for some reason? I think it's because I spent the first half of the year almost exclusively at the Albatross, which is shadily cash only and therefore has to be tracked at that time; and then only went to bars in ENC on a handful of occasions; and have only been to like three bars since moving to CO. One can deduce, though, that my alcohol consumption this year has been significantly lower than last year. That's what happens when you and your 30 closest friends stop living next door to each other and walking distance from a bar, I guess. :)

I'm amazed that I donated more than 400 dollars. As I was tallying it I said out loud, "This cannot be right," hahaha. It's an election year, which explains it, but I definitely did not budget that much money for giving away. An okay problem to have, in the end!

The stat that I sit in deepest disbelief about is the weight loss. That's been quite a journey, y'all. And I can only hope that that number is at least the same in 2013.

Life is weird and good. I should print that on a t-shirt or hang it on my wall or tattoo it on myself. It's the simplest truth I've got. Last year I wrote that I'm not one to wax poetic about the blank slate of a new year. The truth is that I've already done so, because the new year we celebrate at Advent was pretty critical to my spiritual existence this year. Working at church will do that to you, I guess. So it's funny to have already sort of started anew a month ago, and have the whole world saying that today is the day we do that. This is probably what celebrants of things like Chinese New Year feel like, too, haha.

I'm not one to make resolutions for the new year (incredible lack of willpower), but two nights ago on twitter, Paul Myers (brother of Mike Myers, resident of Berkeley, all-around cool dude) said a few words about starting fresh, and included the hashtag #NewYearsRevolutions. I loved that idea.

2012 has been a year of all sorts of bonkers nonsense, in just about every capacity imaginable. As a world, we had particularly great moments and we had particularly awful moments, and I think we may have, unfortunately, tipped the scale toward awful. So it is my hope that 2013 will bring about revolution. We can't have another year like we've had.

It is my goal that by the time I write these words on the first day of 2014, that we'll have tipped the scale toward great. That the US Congress will have gotten its act together, at least a little. That incidences of gun violence will be on the decline. That the Obama Administration will quit it with the drone strikes. That we'll think before we speak -- especially before we blame. That, above all, we'll care for each other.

I hope that, personally, 2012 has been good to you. I hope that you are looking ahead to 2013 as a year full of possibilities for wonder and life and love. I hope to see more of you in 2013 than I did in 2012 -- regardless of how much I saw you in 2012. There can always be more.

The reason that I can look forward to a new year with hope and joy is because of the light you bring to my life. I attended two weddings this year (I had to miss two others!) and am off to another this weekend, and am overjoyed to celebrate as a bridesmaid with one of my dearest friends in March. And holy crap so many people I love got engaged this year. Where there is love, there is life.

You hear that, 2013? We're hitting the ground running.

Starting off the new year with a post not really about the new year.

I have always found dreams to be so fascinating. Where does the subject matter and imagery come from? My subconscious has some pretty boring stuff in it usually -- I never dream anything that is physically impossible (so no flying, no dinosaurs, no magic, etc.). And yet I still manage to have the oddest dreams. The last two nights have been particularly awful specimens.

Two nights ago, I dreamed that a dear friend of mine was in an accident. He reads this, so he'll remain nameless. I remember that there was a car accident, and then that he regained consciousness -- I don't know how long he was unconscious. So we're all overjoyed that he's conscious, blah blah blah, and suddenly, he doesn't know any of us. We all reintroduce ourselves to him, explaining our relationships to see if we'll trigger something, but he's lost. And because it was a dream, it was possible for him to have lost all his memory of us, but not of knowing his own name, or of speaking or walking or knowing what a hospital was or what a mother was or all other social constructs. It was as though he'd simply lost all memory of his relationships. We tried showing him photographs of us, read him words he'd written us, but to no avail. It was like he had died, but also we had died. Because as much as he had lost his identity, we'd lost the parts of our identity that came through him. It was a feeling of despair I have never felt from a real-life event. It was such a powerful emotion that I really feel like that scenario would be a version of hell (if there was one). I don't know if being in his position or mine would be more painful, but it was really unbearable. I woke up before there was any semblance of resolution, but I imagine that we just had to start our lives over.

And last night, in my dream, I was at a huge celebration with a bunch of people from CLU. I'm pretty sure we were in Lundring (hahaha) but it was way bigger. So maybe we were in Gilbert? I don't know. Regardless, there were a bunch of tables and everyone was eating and drinking and laughing and there was a presentation being made by ReShai [our trusty King/President, even in my dreams, haha]. The whole time I was flooded with memories of CLU -- it was so joyful. All I really recall about who else was there was that Ben was at my table. Maybe this was a dream about missing Ben and ReShai? [Maybe we need to do more work on being class reps.] But it got awful, quickly. It turned out that ReShai had thrown this party because he was dying. He had gathered us all together because he was going to die, and he wanted to tell all of us at once, and have it be the last time he saw any of us. I don't know of what he was dying or when he would die but it was imminent and it was devastating.

So what does this mean? Of course my life is defined by those with whom I am in relationships. That seems like a given. But why am I in such distress about them? Subconscious -- chill out.

In order to make this a slightly new year related post, I'll resolve to make sure to love my friends before they die/get in wack accidents. And to stress less in real life about them, so hopefully I can stress less in dream-life. New Year resolutions are so useless. But my relationships are always worth treasuring.