End of the Year Review
When the year ends, do you review? I find this sentimental, yet I do.
My birthday is in early January, so every December calls for some kind of life review — both end-of-the-year, and pre-birthday tremors.
Almost every time, I find myself asking whether I should draw any lines at the end of a year at all. All this sounds very conventional, because time only flows by, without any marks other than we create ourselves. In the East, people conceptualize time having a circular nature, which again questions the reasons for any calendar-bound milestones. Yet, sometimes it’s just fun to look behind, take mental (or physical) notes, and try to guess ahead — without a necessary purpose of goal-setting, just for the pleasure of such pastime.
Looking back at my 2013, I, in all optimistic seriousness, see nothing bad. Even the moments of pain are of evolutionary nature. I think I’ve always been lucky this way. With all the people who were close to me, all the events, all the readings, listenings, watchings… The year was abundant with impressions and what I can only call good vibes.
Being somewhat (pretty much) addicted to music, I make yearly mixtapes. For the past couple of days, I’ve been staring blankly at 30-something tracks, of 2+ hours, not sure what to cut out in order to fit all in an hour, and how to mix together the rest.
Each year has its own smell, sounds, tones.
For me, 2013 feels like chilling with a friend to you-know-whose “Get Lucky,” of writing away to Moderat’s “Bad Kingdom,” like gazing through the train window to Rhye’s “The Fall,” like soothing the pain with The National’s “Trouble Will Find Me,” like dancing away to Disclosure in Barcelona, and so many more other things. I can’t erase the associations, and I can’t delete the tracks from the playlist. Let them stay, divided into the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ parts.
2013 smells like Valentino Rock’n’Rose Pret’a’Porter and Demeter Paperback (leaving the homme perfumes off stage). It smells of homemade dinners (I learned to cook), a little bit of beach sand, of fruit from parents’ garden.
Each year stays in the memory in a number of polaroid shots, smells and sounds, each vibrating on its own frequency. Whether you keep count of the things you learned, the things you did for the first time, and of general life moments — every personal season is stored away in your memory, occasionally brought back in the form of nostalgia. As noted in a HuffPost article,
“When we experience nostalgia, we tend to feel happier, have higher self-esteem, feel closer to loved ones and feel that life has more meaning. And on a physical level, nostalgia literally makes us feel warmer.”
So, this December, again, I’m preparing my mind to store away the sweet moments of the year, to summarize the experiences. Yielding to the seasonal nostalgia, and hoping the gods of the good vibes are benevolent and gracious to me next year.
