This is the way the year ends: Not with a bang but a whimper

Waiting for the New Year to sneakily creep in, second by agonizing second, always makes me feel strange. Like I’m supposed to feel different in that instant and then moments on the other side of the midnight line. Maybe because I’ve never felt what I think I’m supposed to feel that I often get angsty around the year change. But it doesn’t help that the last week has been ridiculously stressful.

For those of you lucky enough not to have heard my late night tirades, I shall explain. I was impatiently waiting for my passport with shiny new Italian visa to arrive, so I could head out to see my grandparents and then return to Portland. I was/am looking forward to puttering around the city I’ve been living in for 3 years, but never properly had time to enjoy.* Because I am me, a special and unique individual, my solution was to obsessively check the United States Postal Service website to see if the tracking number was in use yet and neurotically read everything about visas on the Consulate General’s website. What I discovered deeply disturbed me. First, they say it takes 30 days to process a visa, and second, they don’t process visas for people who don’t live in a select number of happy American states. Canada isn’t one of those states, as much as some Americans like to include it in the American sphere of influence. Cue panic of epic proportions.

I can hear you rolling your eyes, saying, “Someone would have told you if you needed to send it to a different Embassy. You can’t control this, let it go! You just have to relax, I’m sure it will all work out and you will not be left behind, you are still going to Italy!” Yes, thank you, oh wisdomous ones. I am aware I can’t control any of these things, just my reactions; take a chill pill, blah blah. But that doesn’t mean I can’t fret, even if fretting means I have an awful pit in my stomach all day and can’t eat and sleep badly. Besides, I was telling myself all the same things.

And I did get over it. I took a lovely walk on the beach in the dark (“I don’t want you walking along the road in the dark, why didn’t you tell me you’d left!?” My stepdad is also good at fretting, although to be fair, I probably should have told him I was leaving) and saw my good buddy Orion and the hints of the islands off the coast illuminated by various cities behind them. It was very cold, and very dark, and very lovely. I don’t generally like looking at the night sky – I feel tiny and insignificant in a futile way and I feel like the sky will DROWN ME AND THEN LAUGH BECAUSE IT DOESN’T CARE MUAHAHA. It also made me laugh at stupid bureaucrats who think that what they do matters. Like watching ants frantically rearrange sand. It’s kind of sad. I wanted to go pat them all patronizingly on the head, and say, “Does it make you feel better to nit-pick? Silly pen-pushers.” Thus, refreshed and relaxed, I returned triumphant to my castle. Then I actually called the consulate and a very nice man told me my passport was almost done. Which was the sane course of action, but durr I had to flip out first. Those of you who did suffer through my angst-filled fretting, I am eternally grateful. You have gone above and beyond the call of duty. =]

Of course, now begins the frantic gathering of STUFF. Things like tights and socks and undershirts and shoes and bags and notebooks and sweaters and and and. And it is slooow. In one day, we managed to cross two things off my list. *TWO*. That’s pathetic, even by my indecisive standards. I haven’t even begun the gargantuan task of choosing a camera, although I was promised the assistance of someone in the know when I get to Portland (read: who know something about cameras other than you push the button and it takes a picture). Although there is really only one major thing left to do before I can leave. But I cannot stop fretting – what if I don’t have the right stuff, what if I look like a tourist, what if I don’t have the appropriate clothing layers for the central-heating-challenged peninsula and so forth.

But I did not begin this post with the intention of whining about my existence. I began this post, because it’s finally 2011! And I’ve been waiting for this year ever since I found out the first overseas program to Italy I could attend would be this spring! And it seems like an excellent way to start the year. 2010 went out with a bang – lots of stress and fretting, but that’s in keeping with the year as a whole. 2011 entered with the joy that my passport is FINALLY on it’s way north from San Francisco, and lots of lovely anticipation for heading across the pond. And despite my annual end-of-year anxiety, I actually like the New Years. It’s all fresh and shiny and I totally buy into that second (or in my case, twenty-first) chance, improvements stuff. So although it might make me a “chump” I’m going to make a resolution. I resolve to do my best to keep this excited, happy feeling around for the whole year. I want the whole year to feel like the adventure that I’m about to embark on.

So now you have all been caught up on the goings on in my boring ol’ life, I’ll take the opportunity to wish you all a happy New Year. Whether you make resolutions or not, I hope this year is an improvement on the last. If you’re in Portland, come see me and receive my affection before I am spirited away to the land of pasta and pizza. If not, I’ll be mentally hugging you all as I prepare to leave.

<3

* There are also some things I haven’t crossed off my list yet that I decided would be easier to do in Portland than in Nowhere, BC, Canada.