Kiss Today Goodbye...and Point Me Towards Tomorrow

So, I knew it was too good to last. It had to come to an end. By this time tomorrow, the hiatus will officially be over. After a year of fun, travel, sloth, and spiritual recuperation, tomorrow if my first day at my new job, and back in the rat race.

As years go, this one would be pretty hard to top. Eleven countries visited. (Fourteen if you count layovers in airports.) Dozens of bottles of Argentine wine. Many, many great memories with friends and family, both new and old. And, literally hundreds and hundreds of photographs -- although most are too reminiscent of Cliff Claven's Florida vacation slide shows to be shared.

When I look back at where I was this time last year, I cannot help but feel joyous at where I am now. My five plus years in New York City definitely offered some good times, but also way too many gloomy times for my liking. New York is such a tough city to live in -- you have to really love it to stay. By the end of my time in NYC, my soul felt beaten down. I was bored with work and the social side of life, but even more bored with myself. I felt incapable of carrying on a normal conversation with life long friends, let alone anyone new you might meet.

Leaving New York, my job was like dropping the sandbags from a bright rainbow-colored hot air balloon. (Bad metaphor -- I hate heights and rainbow-colored hot air balloons, and I don't want to be a hot air balloon. Plus, it then just leads me to think about that movie The Red Balloon, and that poor little French kid who ran around in a gray outfit on a gray cityscape chasing the wiley red balloon. Oooh. I like that.) Ahem. Leaving New York, my job was like when the child in The Red Balloon finally catches the balloon and is joyous, after an eternity of chasing that pesky balloon through the mean streets of Paris while wearing gray and saying nothing.

Whatever the metaphor, like the balloons, these days I feel light and carefree. Well, most of the time. Tonight I'm kind of nervous about starting my job and being the new girl. I hate being the new girl. You'd think after moving seven times before my eighth birthday I'd have learned how to be the new girl. It doesn't mean I have to like it.

But back to light and carefree. The traveling was great. Really exceptional. But I also enjoyed the down time. I liked reconnecting with friends again. I liked trying to be a better friend, actually. I've really enjoyed the feeling on a Sunday night, when instead of dreading going to work, you only worry about whether you missed this week's episode of Rock of Love 2 with Brett Micheals. Similarly, I also enjoy the decadent feeling of waking up and seeing that an all day marathon of ANTM is playing, and you have nothing to do that day but catch up on America's Most Tired Model Wannabes and their latest Tyra Mail.

Also, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE hanging out with my nephew. The first six months of his life, I was living in NYC, and saw him only a few times. But, I've been around the last year, and have earned status as his most favorite person -- except when Grammy is around to buy his love with toys. He is so happy and innocent and smart. At the risk of sounding more than incredibly hokey, I am surprised at how much joy it brings my heart just to be around him. (Not surprised at the joy it brings me to hand over responsibility to my sister, his mom, when he starts throwing a tantrum because you don't have a copy of The Backyardigans cued up for him to dance to.)

Anyway, in sum, and with no great measure of mature reflection, it was a bitchin' year. I can't believe it's over. I can't believe I didn't write a best-selling novel about my year, like the Coyote-Ugly author turned spiritual Eat, Pray, Love-self-actualization-book-whore. (The story about the porcupines in Botswana was pure money, or it would have been if I had included the part about me swilling moonshine and vomiting before said porcupine incident.)

Thanks for reading, friends. And with that, I'm off to watch the season finale of Rock of Love 2, a fitting denouement for the last night of my sabbatical.