End of the Year

I was supposed to be driving down the Eastern Seaboard today. But the potential threat of ice and the fact that my car is still covered with snow is keeping me here. Hopefully I will be out and about and on the road headed south tomorrow.

So I figured I'd spend today thinking about this year, this 2008. This is possibly my last day in New York City in 2008, and what a ride it has been.

Because I'm a dork and like reviewing things, I'll do a bit of a recap:

January -- I remember coming back from my Christmas holiday in SC and sitting with my old friend in her Brooklyn apartment, and saying, "I feel like I need to celebrate this new year." They looked at me crazy. I said, "I mean, I feel like this year is going to be big." So we celebrated. I started a new job teaching high schoolers and mentoring and educating learners in NYC. AWP was in NYC. I celebrated my birthday with a huge Cave Canem reading. I remember folks seeing me there and multiple times people telling me, "You have this glow about you", and one friend saying "After all you've been through, you must be about to be handed something big."

February -- I don't really remember much about February. I was hanging deep with this fellow that I liked, but probably shouldn't have liked. But I was living and working. The end of February, I got this call to put my manuscript back into the world.

March -- The end of March I hit a valley. Progress happens like that. You get knocked down so then you have nothing else to do but to build yourself back up. I remember having a conversation with a friend. I was in tears. But I said -- "I have this feeling in my gut that after all of this, I'm about to be handed something great"

April -- Rough patch coping with the fellow. I remember feeling underappreciated at work. I remember resigning and preparing myself to head back to South Carolina. I was building a life there, getting ready to abandon the Northeast and all of it's issues. Then I had my review, and realized all of my hard work was being recognized. I got the raise I desired. I went home for a week, and the prize announcement for the competition my manuscript was entered into was the same week I was home. I was able to go there and be in the presence of Elizabeth Alexander when she announced that she picked my book as the winner.

May -- What I remember most about May is the euphoria of knowing my writing will be in the world in a big way soon. I remember thinking, maybe I should stick NYC out. I remember writing in my journal: "I want to conquer NYC"...and I changed my mindset of being on the defense to being on the offense, and a whole world opened up as soon as I changed my mind about how I would be interacting with this city.

June -- I moved into my "impossible" apartment in NYC. In a conversation I had with a friend last week, he commented, "You sure have a lot of boundaries for things you want." And it was sort of off-handed, like, how dare you keep saying "I don't want this" etc etc. And then I thought about it, and I agreed. And I said, "That's the only way I get exactly what I want." I remember thinking, "If I were to move into NYC, I want to live in Manhattan, I don't want to pay a certain amount of money, I don't want to live with a complete stranger, I want to live in Harlem, and I don't want to look for the apartment." I call it the impossible apartment, because that seems like an impossible feat. A friend called me to ask what would keep me in the city. I told her exactly what I wanted and didn't want. She said, "My roommate is moving out, and I wanted you to be the first to know." So I moved into my impossible apartment...which had everything I wanted.

Also in June, I started Bikram Yoga, which, changed my life. I finished my last year as a Cave Canem Fellow. And walked into the world.

July -- All of July was spent in isolation. I spent the month in Connecticut at the Soul Mountain retreat, writing and sleeping and dreaming.

August -- was interesting because I was in this weird place where I wasn't sure when work would start back up, and I had just taken two months off without pay and was still paying to live in a NYC apartment. I spent a lot of time in my apartment writing and sending work out and preparing myself. My wise friend said, when I was worried that I was deteriorating, that, "I think it's smart. You are resting up before your book comes out. I wish I had done that."

Sept--October. I don't really remember too many specific things about this period except, I decided that I needed mini vacations away from the city. I spent many sundays upstate or away or just out and about not really worrying or doing anything of any importance. Getting to know friends on a deeper level. There was the Election frenzy and worry about the results, and getting frustrated at "friends" comments and postings and trying to figure out how they will factor into my life after November. I bought a bed in October, and realized that act was prooving that I was settling into, taking on the city. A lot of things went crazy for a bit after that.

But maybe I should take my lessons from Bikram Yoga. It's the only yoga I've practiced, really. But I remember when I first started and committed myself, there were positions that I could not do, indeed, they were painful. But you're taught to breathe through the discomfort, and soon enough your body will adjust and you'll feel this click, and somehow I can make my forehead touch my knee while standing up, or make my body bend in almost a 90 degree angle to the right or left. So. What I mean by all of this, is that, I had to breathe through the hard, uncomfortable stuff. And here I am, doing what I thought I never could do.

November -- election, thanksgiving. I met a new friend, which caused me to stretch my boundaries, and apply what i want and don't want to personal relationships. I decided in that month, too, to stop self-sabotaging my life, and get my act together and apply to grad school again. I spent that month still in tears, still trying to wrap my mind around this life I'm in right now, and prepare for my book in the Spring.

December -- I decided that I don't have time in my life for sadness. Again, taking the offense on your life totally changes your perspective and how you deal with things. Immediately I found some happiness. I did much celebrating before I turned in my application to grad school, and that took away some of the edge, some of the fret. No matter what happens, it's the offensive play that makes me proud. And here I am, at the end of the year, and so excited...sooo excited about 2009, I can hardly contain myself.