A Fresh Start

2010 is just around the corner, and I'm really looking forward to the new year. I'm so ready to begin anew. Isn't that just a bit magical - the fact that Jan. 1 brings with it 12 fresh months of possibility - 12 months of clean slate. Past sins and transgressions and mistakes - all wiped clean in the advent of the new year. Tabula rasa.

2009 has been a good year, don't get me wrong. I learned a lot this year...a lot about myself, a lot about the world, and I've carved a place for myself here in New York City. Brooklyn is home to me in a way that Phoenix never was. Yet I still find myself unable to truly settle...if I so wished, I could easily pack my belongings in one solid suitcase and move out of the country at the flick of an eyelash. There's a certain appeal to that idea; simply vanishing, beginning anew in some strange locale. Yet there's something odd about it too, and I wonder if it's a sign that I'm meant to be elsewhere.

I think I am. But New York will be in my blood for a long time, and I don't see myself leaving very soon. Then again, I never "saw" myself moving here, either. It's impossible to predict the future, I've learned, as much as I've attempted to steer against the current of time, paddling frantically in that moment's desired direction. I must learn to let go, to spread my arms and float...to simply be. God, the current, time, fate...whatever you wish to call it...it will take me where I'm meant to go.

There's a certain liberation in that thought. The light looks a bit brighter when you realize that there is no such thing as coincidence. Our encounters, our travels and insights, all of them exist to teach us.

But ah, New York...a city I would have never dreamed myself living in, yet here I am, and I love it with all my heart. Possibility dwells here in droves, and all it takes is a foot out the door to find it. Yes, there are times when I want to attack the slow, wandering tourists in Times Square, but for the most part, I am in love with this place - a wonderful, deep and potent sort of love. New York has been good to me.

And yet...

Last night, I experienced an epiphany. Let me share.

My friend Kat gifted me with a journal for Christmas, which was incredibly sweet of her, knowing as she does how much I love to write and doodle. There were a few years there (mostly in high school), where all I did was write. I would lose myself in the written word for hours on end, shunning the typical high school pursuits (i.e. drinking and partying) for solitude - just me and my antiquated computer. If it wasn't the computer, it was a sketchpad, where I drew all manner of characters and scenes and random images that just popped into my head, unformed and cloudy, just waiting to take shape beneath my pencil.

I was creative.

Writing became something of an obsession - partly because I wished to escape the reality of my life. A sort of simple therapy, if you will - a hell of a lot more efficient than speaking my mind to a stranger with a Ph.D. If I wasn't in school, you could easily find me holed up in my room, sitting cross-legged on the bed in an oversize sweatshirt, just tapping away on that old computer. At age 16, there was nothing more I wanted.

College changed that. Suddenly, I had a life outside of school and home - and it was fun. I came out of my shell, so to speak, and began to be more extraverted. I've always been an outgoing, liberal-minded person, but I am slow to warm to people. You had to work for my friendship. In high school, it was partly due to arrogance that I kept to myself - I thought I was smarter, more accomplished and ambitious than my classmates. But in college, that barrier no longer existed.

Over time, my friendship was a guarantee upon meeting - I naturally give people the benefit of the doubt until I'm proven wrong. In short, I'm a trusting person. I like to be liked - and I'm not sure if this is a gracious gift or a fatal flaw.

Since those high school years, my creativity has slowly drained away from me. Writing has become a chore, and yet I'm trapped with these persistent thoughts, banging away at my skull and screaming to be released into words. This untapped creativity has been driving me mad...inexorably, inch by inch, moment by moment, I am dying by degrees.

I sleep too late. I eat horribly. I do not take care of myself. I look at myself and see dark circles beneath my eyes. New York has been good to me, but it's also running me ragged, and I cannot live in this fashion any longer. There are too many people around me who have been made old by this city...people who exist in a state of suspended adolescence, fueled by cocaine and alcohol and God knows what else, unable to function without attending some sort of party or social gathering. There is no depth to them, no drive, no direction...nothing. They are shells.

I find myself being drawn into this midnight circle, and for the first time, I am choosing to stop it.

This is a new year. It's time to shed the toxic old skins of 2009. It's time to start writing again, time to carry a sketchpad with me wherever I go, time to capture those thoughts and ideas and emotions once more, shining like fireflies in my waking mind.

I'm beginning now.