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.
