the end is NYE

If I could see your face and hear your heart right now, i'd tell you I feel a bit befuddled over the change of what is to be.

These past few days I have been mulling over what to say and how to feel about this last year; i've been struggling to pin point my exact sentiments and emotions of this past year. 

2015 was:

Turning 22. Graduating college. Adopting a kitten. Doing the real-deal job interviews. Taking a call from The New York Times. Discovering a potential eye disease. Feeling a February that felt like May. Competing my butt off at a state wide research competition. Seeking grace. Driving all day with a sweet red head just for Shake Shack. Ditching class for too much whipped cream on waffles. Rescuing vintage furniture from the side of the road. Trying pink hair. Celebrating weddings and mourning a missed first birthday. Clinging to sunrises and knowing the proximity of Terror. Seeing love in the shade. Wearing plaid pants. Laughing at two ever so much in love from the backseat. Eating pizza in a car with a piece of Broadway blaring. Watching hummingbirds grow. Retexturing ceilings and cursing popcorn. Telling the story of Special Olympics athletes. Becoming a twitter-er. Falling in love with yoga. Slapping on a fresh coat of paint. Wearing all the stripes. 

It sounds redundant and pointless to say that change is coming. Because, every single year the calendar changes and we change with it. Its nothing new.

Maybe we don't change in all the big and loud ways every time, sometimes -- most times the change is subtle. But those subtleties, by the end of the year or season or moment, some how make us. 

We pour so much into our days here this side of heaven, consciously and subconsciously, that by the end of the year I always feel a little drained.  The goodbye, the hello, the hope, and the dread all are rolled into the passing of another year. 

2016 will beckon a lot of change into my life. It will usher in so much unknown. 

And the only way to begin is to start. Yet, there is always this moment of pause and reflection as the end draws nye. I love that we as creatures are conscious of moments, spaces, and times. We know we are mere mortals and in the end our time always draws short. It is a privilege to understand time and to recognize its beauty. 

As the clock strikes midnight and the champagne is popped, all will be as it should be. 2016 will begin and begin its process of ending all at once. How strange and wonderful.

Jesus, you go before.