Monday, January 02, 2012

in the year twentytwelve

This is my 795th post. Since I started this blog in 2004 I have graduated three times. I have moved five times. Two siblings got married, two nieces and one nephew were born, and both brothers went on missions. I went to London twice. Lived in Provo, Bountiful, Chicago, and Evanston. Worked ten different jobs. Had fifteen roommates. (All numbers subject to my English-major inability to count.) We won't even begin to consider how many movies I've seen, how many books I've read, how many papers I've written, or how many times I've put my song-of-the-day on repeat to become white noise.

Maybe I should just be looking at the past year instead of the past seven. 2011, you were something else. Or you were just like every other year. I'm not sure yet. I think you have to put considerable distance between a time and yourself before you can start to understand what it meant. All that being said, I'm going to talk about now. 11:30 p.m., January 2, 2012.

I'm sitting in my new bedroom, which is in Provo. Good old awful Provo. For the first time in three years, I have a dresser. And for the first time in four years, I have roommates. (Real roommates. Not pay-the-rent roommates who live with their boyfriends.) I'm excited and terrified by the idea of living with people who are not family, who don't have to love me even when I'm me. I've spent the night figuring out what will make this room mine--a rug, a bedspread, a lamp. Rows of movies and a few strategically placed cake stands. A family photograph, a map of Chicago. So much of me, but I'm still not sure who is living in this room.

I want 2012 to be landmark year, but we always say that, don't we? We want this year to be the best year. But what will make it the best? That's what I can't answer just yet. I want to go to my Relief Society answers--which may or may not be what you think they are--but I don't think that's it. I don't think events are what make the year. Maybe it's people.

Here's the first landmark of the year--and maybe it came before the year officially started, but I don't care. Seth and I were sitting on the bed in "my" room at our family's home, trying to figure out his school schedule and online banking. Mom looked in on us as she passed by the door, and stopped, surprised at the sibling resemblance. All five of us have similar eyes, similar smiles--if you put us in a line up, we're definitely related--but I've never been told I look like Seth or that Seth looks like me. For whatever the reason, that was a connection I needed.

The next landmark, of course, was playing Mario Kart with Seth and Maryn. But that's a story for another time.
 

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