twenty three

22 was a big one,

though I guess I could say that every year.  They're all the same size, really,

aren't they.

But this one felt big.

A year of changes, of transitions.

I moved cities twice,

apartments four times;

I learned how to navigate craigslist apartment listings with some modicum of wisdom.

I graduated college,

found a job I loved

and then another job that suits me better,

a job that makes me excited to get out of bed every morning and put my feet on the ground.

I left a toxic relationship

and started a healthy one.

I tried to forget the worst parts of the former, to bury the person I thought they meant I'd become;

I learned that forgetting is impossible and healing is a big job;

I learned to talk about it little by little;

I remembered what it feels like to feel safe in someone's love.

I sat in a girl's bedroom and fell in love with her bookshelf,

and then a little later with her.

And in the interim, I took myself on a lot of great dates.

I lost my grandfather,

and in returning east for a funeral realized how badly I wanted to return for good.

I felt the pull of familial love;

I missed my grandfather and cried a lot;

I decided I didn't want to miss people while they are still around.

I learned to talk on the phone,

and I learned how much I love talking on the phone.

I learned to listen to myself when I miss people and wonder what they're up to;

I learned to ask how people are doing.

In turn, I had a lot of important phone conversations, about everything and nothing, on the way home from the grocery store or on a lap around the park.

I grew, a lot,

not physically.

I learned about what I like and what I hold as valuable and what my priorities are in work and relationships and interior decoration.  I learned about the relationship between quality and price and allowed myself to spend money on real winter clothes and nice-smelling candles.

I became impossibly more confident in my body;

I decided I am cute.

I cut off most of my hair.

I started and stopped running a thousand times. I started paying attention to my injuries.  I discovered the beauty of deck-of-cards workouts.

I fell back in love with the world.

I experienced pain and loss and suffering and watched those I love do the same.

I woke up one morning and thought the world was a beautiful place anyway,

which I hadn't thought in a while,

not really,

not like I used to.

Inevitably, I made a lot of mistakes;

I forgave myself;

I wondered if I should.

I promised to be better.

I broke that promise.

I tried again.

I thought about what "better" means.

A while ago I sat in the living room with my roommate and she reflected that she is probably the happiest right now that she has ever been.

I wondered if that was true for me.

I determined it may well be.

I've been through times in the past where I felt so happy it was physically painful, like I might explode, like I couldn't explain it to anyone without crying, and even then,

I couldn't explain it to anyone.

I don't cry like that now

but

I found a city and an apartment and a roommate and a job and a team and a girl and a cat and a family and a life that I love.

I walk home over the bridge some days with my heart so full, but not so heavy,

looking at the lights across the river,

the skyline that made me forgive four o'clock sunsets.

I am still trying to be better;

I always will be.

But damn, 22. You saw the worst and the best of me. In that order.

You forced me to check the person I am and think critically about the person I want to be.

And here's the part that's uncomfortably sappy, even for me, so leave now if you please:
For a long time I've said that when I grow up, what I most want to be is happy.

I think the marker of growing up is a lot fuzzier than I once imagined it to be,

but I'm somewhere on my way,

and right here, at the end of my year of transitions,

I am so happy to be happy.