December 26 – January 1
Sitting on the couch now nearing the end of my first week in the new year having a small cold that gave strange feverish dreams This year, I’m already batting 1,000, as my boyfriend said.
But the promise of the future is that there is always the good to outweigh whatever bad, small or big, is thrown at me. 2018 is proving to be a more unpredictable year, and while I go along with each day and what it brings, at least I can remember a beautiful ending to the most extravagant year of my life, now gone but never to be forgotten.
I had no expectations going into 2017 when the clock struck midnight just a year ago, downtown at the Havana Nights-themed party held at one of my favorite bars, Novela. I was there under the gold balloons and stealing kisses with my sweetheart in a plastic top hat, his hands around me and a glass of champagne which he drunkenly kept clinking against mine. A sweet memory to start off the year, and I should have taken that as a marker of the glorious things to come.
Traveling was the first adventure of the year– in fact comprised of many. It began with the feathery Spanish Moss draping old Oak trees in Georgia where I met my boyfriend’s family for the first time, and not long after I was moved along into unknown lands beyond the sea where my dreams of London came true, followed by a tough love wanderlust through the streets of Paris and finally a breath of fresh air and warm sun in the two days in Bruges that wrapped up Europe. Then I was fortunate enough to be chosen by my team at work to represent and train our colleagues out in Mumbai– a place I never dreamed of going, just on my own. Almost turning down that opportunity, I look back now and for certain know that it was all meant to be, with no regrets and just perfect memories in my mind of a new world I enjoyed to the fullest. Rounding out the year was an intimate, wild weekend of adventures with my sister in New England, apple picking and casting spells and getting caught in the rain of old seaside towns where fishing boats swayed in still waters.
In the magic of the moment, you really hold onto the offerings of these new places, unfamiliar people, and a life so far from the one you’ve only known. The many adventures of the past year remind me that I was lucky to get away– lucky to come back too. Travel is a fleeting privilege, chaining us by timing and means and frankly, our drive– when those two other factors fall into place. And when they do, you’re only left with the destination– or one of many– before you, and an open door that will always tempt you with each passing year. There’s that feeling of never knowing whether you really will return or not– and that’s what makes every second away home unforgettable.
Motivation and drive have always been engrained in my spirit, the force behind why I still write. Making a difference, having an impact– in 2017 these were made possible with the simple daydream I had one morning in March that became the beautiful joy Marjorie Magazine. Having felt the strain and hangups of freelancing and submitting in pieces to publications of all prestige, now was the time for me to create something beautiful for the world– by the world of writers. Something to help our cause and give the voice and power back into the dark of writing for nothing– here, you find writers writing for something, something that they’re passionate about and coming to you and placing the moment of truth in your hands. It’s been strange to have such power, but it’s a noble cause to keep the faith and give fellow writers a chance they really want.
Marjorie Magazine has already published two print issues, gathered slow but genuine interest across social media, and we have photographers and contributors scattered across the country. Making these connections to people sharing the same love in beautiful, old things has been the most rewarding, a new adventure without having gone anywhere. Is it successful? Not on the level I hope to achieve one day, maybe this year, maybe not– but existing alone is already success in itself. Until then, getting the word out, mapping out what marketing techniques are working on my own, and getting the privilege to turn my own experiences into an awkward yet truthful and positive presentation at a Blurb X Weebly X Unsplash Business and Branding Panel cannot say otherwise about a bright future ahead for these risks I’m taking at making my own dreams come true.
And lastly, loves of the past remain in the present. Old loves, old friends, and new loves, like that in our newest family addition, have entered into 2018 with me, and right now my only concern is not whether or not anyone might go anywhere– only where our journeys will take us together. Raising Bentley has rekindled a new sense of joy in my family; my daddy talking in baby voices as he once did when we were little girls and when we had our other dog, Louie, my mom who’s notoriously indifferent to animals and yet chasing the 6-month-old in circles around our family room table and petting him lots when he’s sitting still. My sister still struggles at getting him to behave, in getting him to be more cuddly and trusting of people, but she’s proven herself stronger, more motivated now that he is in her life. Bentley is the perfect young boy to further cement how lucky I’ve been in finding new ways to love, when already been blessed with this family of mine, and that perfect sweetheart already by my side.
Yes you, you nearly 2 feet taller than me and indulging in my crude humor and too much sugar and cold hands and listing to Hamilton while we quote The Room together. To this day, to the night we had a fight on the steps of an apartment where a Christmas party went on inside or the uncomfortable morning after both being drunk out the night before and getting mad at each other for damning actions, we always talk about the future, and how it will never change as long as we’re together. You still proclaim that I am a saint, putting up with the stress of law school and night classes and constantly worrying, but no, that has never bother me. These things are in your mind, and I shall always stay here to remind you that that’s where they stay, in your imagination, far from the near perfect reality we are happily living together.
So when I think of how 2018 might go, and how it’s already been going– simply 9 days in– I also remember how uncertain I was of anything in 2017, how much was unplanned, and how many extraordinary. A year of magic is behind me, but it is not THE year of magic. More are to come, as magic is only real when you believe in it. And to the very last day of the year before midnight, I believed it all. In the drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, to the quiet silver waves in the dark after dinner along the shores of Sausalito, and as I kissed my boyfriend in an Outer Sunset Irish pub to the sounds of a favorite tune singing of sleepless city fairytales, I couldn’t have found 2017 to leave us on a bittersweet, almost perfect night.
And so this magic is always going to be there, with each passing year, just so long as you remember to look out for it. 2018, proceed to inspire.
A Week by the Bay 