There’s this superstition that if you have twelve different fruits on your dinner table by the time it’s the New Year, you will have good luck. This year, we have six. I watch my mom arrange the cherries over the apples and pomelos. I ask, “How many do we have?”

“Six. It’s okay, we never finish them anyway,” she chuckled.

          New Year’s this year will come with no preparation. I haven’t whipped up resolutions or taken up my usual cycle of gratefulness– there are no letters, messages in the inboxes of my friends. I woke up this afternoon with all the lights in the house turned off, the gentle pitter patter of rain outside gradually getting louder. I’ve had a fever for the past three days, I’m still looking for the good to come out of it– it’s what I’ve been trying to do with most things.

honesty hour

Some exposition— it’s 1:28 in the morning, I just had a nice, candid conversation with a friend, a playlist from dimmer days is playing. I’m supposed to get up in approximately five hours, but I’m too busy lamenting the fact I haven’t written anything in what feels like a lifetime. Something I’ve been struggling with lately is how words don’t come as easy as they used to. What I want to say, how I feel, it’s all in my head but whenever I try to put it to words, it’s muffled– like trying to speak while you’re under water. These days, I want so desperately to come up for air. I haven’t been very good with words lately, so I’m going to make a list, like I always do.

dear 2017

so, this is goodbye. i’m a firm believer in the phrase that time is an abstract concept because, well, it is. but it’s so fascinating to see how a vast period of human experience can be confined in a number.