You filled me up, 2012

New Years Day, to many, is an opportunity to begin again – to forget about the struggles of the year just passed and dive naked into a pool of clean water and fresh experiences. I never looked at New Years this way. To me, reflecting on the good, bad, ugly and beautiful parts of a year are equally important to the goals I make for the year to come.

I believe it’s always important to remember where we came from.

This year, I welcomed a new decade while watching New Orleans residents illegally set off fireworks throughout cramped neighborhood blocks. I happily toasted a group of people I barely know at midnight, listened to Mozart on my way to the bars and had eaten my second burrito of the day by the time the clock struck three. By 4:00am, I had fulfilled my night’s worth of dancing to both hip hop and reggae music and at 5:00am. I rested my aching feet in bed after carrying my heels out of the cab home.

The night was chaotic, exciting, exhausting, and full of laughter and food – exactly the description I’d give to my past year of living in and traveling from New Orleans.

It was a perfect New Years Eve.

At the end of 2010 and 2011, I wrote reflections on my years. Here’s what filled my 2012:

• Visited 7 new countries (Costa Rica, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, Rwanda, Uganda)
• Lived in a new country, on a new continent (Rwanda, Africa)
• Learned to shoot a revolver
• Experienced my first French Quarter Festival
• Got my seventh ear piercing
• Visited Southern plantations between Tennessee and Louisiana
• Played Game Boy
• Came in third place during a 4th of July flip cup tournament
• Went kayaking (Manual Antonio, Costa Rica)
• Walked the continental divide between North America and Europe (Iceland)
• Visited my first Louisiana cemeteries
• Rode a ferry down the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia (Istanbul, Turkey)
• Had drinks at Flora-Bama, a bar straddling the border of Florida and Alabama
• Swam in an infinity pool that overlooked the Pacific Ocean (Manual Antonio, Costa Rica)
• Went tubing down the Bogue Chitto River
• Moved in with my sister after 10 years of living apart
• Visited my first Turkish bath (Istanbul, Turkey)
• Shared a one-bedroom shotgun apartment with my sister for five months
• Experienced multiple New Orleans crawfish boils
• Learned how to shoot a bow and arrow (Musanze, Rwanda)
• Drank coconut water from a coconut (Montaverde, Costa Rica)
• Watched giraffes, zebras and elephants walk across an open savannah (Akagera National Park, Rwanda)
• Swam in the Gulf of Mexico (St. Teresa, Florida)
• Hiked through two rain forests (Costa Rica, Rwanda)
• Learned to drive a stick shift car
• Went zip lining (Montaverde, Costa Rica)
• Took my first horse and buggy ride (Princes’ Islands, Turkey)
• Made new life-long friends
• Came within 10 feet of a gorilla family in the jungle (Rwanda)
• Went to Easter mass at St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, New Orleans
• Saw Jimmy Buffet play a free concert along the Mississippi River
• Met a boy I like
• Hugged my sister after she completed her first marathon
• Experienced my first Jazz & Heritage Festival
• White water rafted on the Nile River (Jinja, Uganda)
• Saw Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson at a local bar in New Orleans
• Attended a beach wedding at a beach house in Gulf Shores, Alabama
• Swam in natural hot springs (La Fortuna, Costa Rica)
• Worked with criminal offenders and watched them make positive life changes
• Moved to two new apartments
• Took an airboat ride through Louisiana swamps
• Watched the sun rise and set over the Nile River (Jinja, Uganda)
• Learned to hoola hoop
• Graduated with a Masters Degree in Social Work
• Laid in hammocks around the world
• Lit flying lanterns into the sky over the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf Shores, Alabama)
• Learned to paddle board (Jinja, Uganda)
• Swam at the base pool of a waterfall (La Fortuna, Costa Rica)
• Experienced my first Mardi Gras
• Went horseback riding for the first time (La Fortuna, Costa Rica)
• Went to my first two Galactic concerts
• Slid down a 10-story slide (St. Louis, Missouri)
• Lost an uncle to pancreatic cancer
• Missed my uncle’s funeral from being too far away from home
• Road tripped from Rochester, New York to New Orleans, Louisiana (Stopped in OHIO: Cleveland, Lake Erie Islands; INDIANA: Shipshewana, South Bend, Indiana Sand Dunes; ILLINOIS: Chicago, Springfield; MISSOURI: St. Louis; TENNESSEE: Nashville, Franklin; MISSISSIPPI: Tupelo; and drove the Natchez Trace Parkway from Nashville to Tupelo)
• Rode bicycles around Copenhagen, Denmark
• Slept under a mosquito net for three months
• Drove from New Orleans, Louisiana to Orlando, Florida
• Rode ferry boats across the Mississippi and Bosphorus Rivers
• Drove from New Orleans, Louisiana to St. Teresa, Florida
• Had several serendipitous moments

As I have done for the past two years, I close my 2012 with a smile and a tribute:

to my boyfriend: Polish up your teaching skills. This year, I want to learn French.

to my family: This has been a challenging and eventful year in the world of our family. Skype and wine will keep us together.

to my friends: I am grateful for those of you I grew close to this year and miss those I could not spend time with. For each of you forever, my air mattress is your air mattress.

to my boss: I am almost employed again. So long, school work. Hello, paycheck.

to myself: Pat yourself on the back. It was a job well done.

to my future: I’m still not sure what to do with you. But, I’m looking forward to a bit more structure amidst a life that I hope and expect to always be chaotic and exciting.