Next year

Ten 

I am sitting alone, with a glass of off-brand champagne in my hand, surrounded by digital friends I have not been close to in a year. I remember their smell, their tight hugs, our carefree laughter over drinks at Mandy’s. I want desperately for them to be here, for real. I want to show them my new home cut bangs, I want to collapse onto the and cry. I want to say “This has been so had, guys. This has been so hard, and I am so tired.” I want them to say that they know, that they understand, and that they’d help me through it. I am nine seconds away from hope. Hope that I can have them again. That I can be close to them, god, that I can be close to anyone. This year made my remember what it was, touch. I have always wanted more; bigger gestures, louder, reassurance, and deeper conversations. I have always been fought in a struggle to feel loved. It is so hard to feel loved from afar. It is so hard to feel loved without touch. It is so hard o feel loved. But next year, in nine seconds, I am going to be loved again.

Nine

I hate my apartment. i loved it before it became my world. I loved the trendy little succulents, the unapologetically basic fairy lights dancing around my bed frame. I was always to proud wen I invited a new guy to my apartment, my clean apartment, my pretty apartment. And now... It is still pretty, perhaps more so. I is covered in little crafts and ordered pictures. But.... Somewhere, somewhere since march, the light air filling the rooms was replaced with a thick water. Under the pressure of it my back aches, my ears ring, and I cower. I force oxygen from it every breath, and I am exhausted from the struggle. My escape became my prison, my home became my house. But next year, in eight seconds, I can open the door. I can let the air in and be free. 

Eight

My apartment is full of shelves. I spent hours assembling them, screwing them securely to my walls. I was sweaty and smelly and gross. I listened to blaring country music, and swayed my hips as I hammered and nailed and measured. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I had spent my weekends thrifting and eBay-ing and covering their wooden racks in pretty tchotchkes and memories. Since march, the shelves have grown. They are now impossibly tall, looming over me and watching from the heavens. Their cavernous expanses are covered in failures and potential. I was sure, that with all the time in the world, I could tackle the millions of what ifs that had been rattling around in my head since my time became full of rent and work and worry. With days to myself and unlimited focus, I was going to be an author, and artist and a model. But now I am just a woman surrounded by shelves of yarn, books, weights, and embarrassment. Evan wrote a novel. Priya learn to watercolor. I am not an artist. I am not an author. I am not a model. All my life I figured I could be if I just had the time. Now I don’t know what I am. Or if I can be anything. But next year, when the world is at my fingertips, I will finally reach my potential. Next year, I will become someone. 

Seven. 

A tiny silver Star of David lays upon my chest. It was given to me years ago, when I was eleven. I sat at a table among tables. There were card tables and wooden tables and coffee tables. In every seat sat someone who loved me, who I loved. It was the Passover Seder. I was filled with pride and heritage and music and family. I was filled with what I was sure was the spirit of God. We danced until our breath was lost in our throats. We mourned for our losses, for our pains, for the years we spent enslaved so many years ago. We ate until we were full, the kind of full that gives way to tiredness, to contentment, and to snacking half heartedly at the last delicious morsels of almond cake strewn across the plate. At that moment, I did it feel like my problems were to be faced alone. I did not feel like the world ahead of me was daunting. In me was Moses, leading the Israelites to the promised land. In me was my great grandmother, strong in the midst of a war that terrorized her people. I faced a dark expanse of teenagerdom, adulthood, and uncertainty. But it felts as if I was not facing it. It felt as if we were. And then a chorus of family and friend, a chorus of ineffable “we” rose up. We sang of Dayenu, an assurance of enough. We sat with each other, sure that we were loved by God, sure that we were loved by each other, and sure that we loved the world. We told each other our hopes. We told each other of our promised land. My grandmother Sid, “next year, in Jerusalem, there will be a true democracy.” She looked pointedly at my father, a republican. My aunt said “next year in Jerusalem, in the promised land, I will have work. Next year, In Jerusalem, I will be in that room with my family. I will feel love and togetherness and I will be sure of God’s hand on my shoulder. Next year, I will be in Jerusalem. 

Six

I look at my Tv, as a beautiful masked young woman reports from the ball drop. She smiles and points gestures around time square. I have watched the ball drop since I was born. I have never failed to be underwhelmed by it. The drop lasts for moments. The picture is fuzzy. Here I am though, alone in my apartment, tuned in to the program just as if I was a kid at home. I am so many versions of my self. I am a sticky toddler, desperately trying not to doze off and miss the party. I am a hyperactive seven year old, overwhelmed with the luxury of a later bedtime. I am a cynical thirteen year old, rolling my eyes through the new year. I am myself, a twenty-four year law clerk, holding a bottle of champagne on video chat with a few friends. Over the years I have conquered fears, met with great successes, mourned deep losses, and come to terms with horrible failure. I have have struggled through deep waters, treading water to survive. I have held my hands out, and parted seas before me. Every year I have feared the next. As a third grader, i was sure fourth grade would be too much. As a high school student, I feared college. Now I fear my upcoming engagement, unsure how I will handle married life. But every year, as the world became harder, I grew stronger. Next year, I will be stronger. Next year I will handle what is ahead of me as I have done so man years before. 

Five

I wonder who it was, the first person to come up with the New Years ball drop. I wonder why they did it, and what significance it held to them. When did it become a nation-wide spectacle? When did it become a staple of New Years in a tiny Jewish house in Iowa? I love the fact that Humans seek out celebration. We mark days with glittering trees and bright colors. We cover our churches is glass art, we mold chocolates into the shapes of little eggs. We writes stories and we tell them to our children and to our grandchildren. The world is full of tiny ball drops, family traditions of laughter and food and song. The world is full of Gina ball drops, days where millions of people lift their hands up and declare themselves saved. How beautiful is that? How beautiful is it that each and every human on this earth celebrates. It is not a genetic imperative. We did not evolve this way to procreate. Humans have this special light in them. A light that we spread through the world, a blinding light. I squint at the grey light coming off my TV. In four seconds, a piece of metal will drop, and humans will continue a tradition of lifting each other up, a tradition of loving each other, and a tradition of making the world just a little bit easier. And next year, next year it will happen again. 

Four

This year I lost my freedom. I lost my sense of safety. I lost my conviction that it would be ok again. I lost my will and I lay in my bed day after day feeling noting at all. I felt that the world was crashing down around me, that there was nothing I could count on. But I got out of bed. I suffered through work deadlines, I suffered through the riots, I suffered through the quarantine. I got to where I am now by counting on my mom, leaning on my boyfriend, and relying on the kindness of my sister. I counted on the fact that despite the horribleness of everything, there would still be something funny to watch on YouTube. I counted on the fact that my friends would send me texts and memes even if I didn’t respond. Next year, even in small ways, the world will be kind to me again. 

Three. 

I tap my fingernails against the table. I am wearing bright pink acrylic nails. I spent forty five minutes glueing them on, and four dollars on buying them. They are horrendous. I already lost the nail on my pinky. The glue is somehow too sticky and not sticky enough. I now have to go through life dealing with the tedium of having plastic on my fingers. But I feel so...fancy. I had I great forty five minutes putting these fuckers on. I can make a fun sound by tapping them. I survived this year through support, therapy, and work. But sometimes, when things got bad, all I needed were cheap dollar store nails. I needed to feel fancy. Next year, there will be small, happy things. 

Two

I really loved the last wonder woman movie. I basically vibrated in my seat the whole time with suspense and excitement. I love movies. I love being able to curl up and be sucked into another world. I love the music and the adventure. Movies are just one of those little things. This year, the theaters were shut down, and the releases were delayed. But the new Wonder Woman is coming out. Next year, I will go to the movies. 

One

I have never had an ok year. I have never had an easy year. I have never had a year without tears, without disappointments, and without pain. But even now, I have never had a year without laughter. I have never had a year without happiness, and family, and little joys. 

And Next year, next year like every other year, I’ll be ok.