Bring It

Tonight, tonight we put 2012 to rest. Goodbye, dumb year. In truth though, despite its going out on a sad note for me, it's not different than any other year. The calendar doesn't give a fuck, you know? A lot of shitty, depressing, terrible things went down in the world in 2012, but these things always happen every day of every year, they just take different forms and put different populations in the crossfire. I happened to experience personal sorrow in this year, and though I don't recommend it, it wasn't the first time, and I know it won't be the last time this happens. It's the inevitable downside of the richness of loving and being loved. Not to devalue the worth of Niki's life and our friendship at all - each loss is singular, and though I know I'll get over her death eventually, it's hard to imagine that being possible right now. Certainly not just because a new year is beginning. I believe that everyone's entitled to mourn at their own pace, and right now I'm feeling stuck, glacial even, but it's not like I think I own grief. It sure as hell won't own me. Everyone loses people and the beam doesn't stop to wait for any of us to get back on.

I just can't overlook that a lot of good happened, too. In addition to the everyday wonderfulness of life in my little family, with my soul mate and our boy who is growing so fast and awesomely I can't breathe if I think about it too hard, I got to go to a lot of places and have a lot of fun and celebrate with the people I love the most. New babies were born and others had birthdays or began gestating. The dreadful election season came to an end. I feel like, even if I missed one trip, one occasion, had never made it out of the zip code, I wouldn't have missed out on any of the big and important things, not really.

Anyway, I'm feeling the urge to write again, like I have a lot to say in general, in addition to an epic tribute I owe to an epic human being. And that will come in 2013.

For now, this is my song of 2012 (no matter that it's a compilation of songs that came out in 1991).