postmortem

“It’s only New Year’s Eve once a year.”

Yes, but it’s also only every other day once a year. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Time, like any other colour or language or feeling, is incredibly elastic*. And so we divise standard units (or, in America, nonsense units) in an effort to universalize expressions of it.

PS. Sorry I've fallen away from this page again.

___

*not in the economic sense, in which time is incredibly inelastic, a fact we were reminded of too often this year


Above, find yet another CN tower cameo. Below, find 75 of the things we celebrated — as a matter of retroactive perspective — in the interval hereby sealed as 2017:

  • A surprise first-class back to SFO post-holidays.
  • The Women’s March and the reason for it.
  • Shooting part of a Fusion documentary in Weed, CA — about water rights, not marijuana!
  • Working with some environmental heroes and seeing a firsthand mess of the US DOJ.
  • A third hike up to Wildcat Peak.
  • The CCSF pool heater getting fixed after two months of cold morning swims.
  • Being reminded of childhood with good company in Tahoe winter.
  • Getting rejected from three of four law schools I applied to.
  • Going to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • Rollerskating for the first time.
  • Attending more baseball games in one week than in my lifetime.
  • Connecting with Max Cooper.
  • Unicorn frappuccinos.
  • The March for Science and the reason for it.
  • Passing down all my cake decorating skills from a former occupation.
  • The beginning of a beautifully fucked up month.
  • Going to trial for the first time.
  • Confrontation.
  • Taking graduation photos with the best people.
  • A twelfth mimosa.
  • Walking in a graduation ceremony.
  • Walking off an old me.
  • Turning 22.
  • A promise to see you soon.
  • Winning trial.
  • Losing a dear friend.
  • Going even further west.
  • The Garden of Memory.
  • The Double Standard.
  • The end of a beautifully fucked up month.
  • Flying home.
  • Closure.
  • A promise to see you soon.
  • Feeling 22.
  • Being denied a US work visa at the Peace Bridge.
  • Catching a rainbow at Niagara Falls after being turned back at the Peace Bridge.
  • Flying [to my other] home.
  • Skydiving for the first time.
  • Watching a golden lab retriever puppy double, then triple in size.
  • Getting stuck on the summer waitlist at the only law school I cared to attend in 2017.
  • Getting stuck on the Coast Starlight for three extra hours in the Salinas Valley.
  • Not getting a new job or work visa in July.
  • Paxton Gate’s Balloon Bar.
  • Making it onto the Boiler Room guest list, then sleeping through it on accident.
  • Lyfting up to Twin Peaks for sunrise my last morning in SF, but royally Karl’ed.
  • Moving home.
  • Flying back to SFO ten days after moving home.
  • Hearing “Alaska” and “Green Light” at Outside Lands.
  • Bombing Albatross trivia later that evening.
  • Flying back to YYZ two days later, indefinitely.
  • Reconnecting with dear friends.
  • Getting a new passport and aiming to fill it with stamps in the next decade.
  • Getting the green light.
  • Not getting off the summer waitlist at the only law school I cared to attend in 2017.
  • A thirty-sixth truffle-fried french fry.
  • Shooting a music video.
  • Not flying back to SFO and instead driving the Northeast Corridor in October.
  • Moving to Amsterdam for a new job.
  • Being in mainland Europe for the first time.
  • Learning how to ride a bike with coaster brakes.
  • Taking more baths in one month than in my lifetime.
  • Moving into my own apartment.
  • Flying back to SFO two days later, this time for business training, in November.
  • Feeling like I’d never left.
  • A promise to see you again soon.
  • Flying back to AMS a week later and living without roommates for the first time.
  • Learning how to ride a bike through snow and ice.
  • Flying back to YYZ for the holidays and feeling like I’d never left.
  • A White Christmas.
  • Learning how to skate again at negative twenty degrees.
  • Flying back to AMS a week later and shovelling twice my day of departure.
  • Getting way ahead of my 10-year passport goal with a stamp on page 6 of 29.
  • Closing out the year with familiar faces in new places.
  • Ringing in the year with new faces in familiar places.
  • A surprise first-class flight forward to JNB post-holidays.

Considering how little I care for flying, I've certainly exceeded my emissions quota by some garish multiplier I'm terrified to calculate. I don't think I've gotten better at planes or overcoming a longtime fear of abandonment, but I do think I've gotten better at embracing uncertainty. That, or this was truly a year of learning how to give fewer fucks. (Have I few enough to be an adult yet?)

Conversely, I've surprised myself with the distance I'm willing to go to be with people I care about, and with the personal compromises I'm able to make to do so. I'm sleeping more hours, which is weird, and I blame the shift to colder weather after being in California for so long. In many ways, I'm not healing as fast as I used to, and I blame my body's submission to time for that one, though everyone keeps telling me I have years left. But after this year, I'm even less certain of anything but seeing you soon.

My main takeaway? Celebrate every once a year; they really come only once a collective lifetime.