Here is the ticket I used to board a bus 365 days ago. I took the last seat available and sat next to the man who I now date.
What a year, eh? After I met the handsome stranger in a suit, I went on a winter adventure and slept in a yurt in the middle of the wilderness, NH. The first baby to be born in my generation in my family was born mid-March, to my cousins. He’s (possibly) named after a well-known character in a Sendak book.
I participated in a fashion show as a model- my hair made two hairdressers cry, a new personal record. They eventually defaulted to putting my hair in a giant braid. I visited Northampton for the first time in a few years, one of my old stomping grounds. I visited Acadia Herbals for the first time, a herbalist store I highly recommend for tea, tinctures, herbs and essential oils.
April was a trying time for myself and of course, Boston. As always, I took off Patriot’s Day to stand at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I love cheering people through the last several corners before the finish line relieves them. I clap until I can’t feel my hands and until the last runners come through. There’s something about watching someone pushed to their absolute limit then somehow finding the spirit to move further. This year, my sister and I met at Kenmore, the closest point between our two houses. We were going to move to the finish line, but I got hungry and got a giant bag of chips and we stayed to finish the chips in our decent viewing spot. The bombs went off when we were on our way to the finish. From the sense of panic, halted runners and troop of policemen that quietly but purposefully ran past us, my sister and I sensed something horrible had happened. We began running to get away from Copley and also Fenway, in case of further bombs. The rest of the story y’all know, because it was plastered all over the news. A few nights later, I was walking home from the T when I heard shots and then sirens, thus audibly witnessing the murder of Officer Sean Collier. I spent the Lockdown day listening to the radio updates and transplanting and staking pea plants in my windowbox.
A couple days after that, I woke up on my 24th birthday to this enormous car crash outside my door.
Highlights included meeting my favorite author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who was touring with her new title Americanah. (This year I also met Barbara Kingsolver, Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman, Alan Dershowitz and Stephen King. It pays to live in Boston!) I ran 2 half marathons, one of which was my ma’s first half marathon! She not only kicked my ass but placed pretty high in her age group. Ma and I also ran a bushwack 10 miler in the mountains and it was my worst race ever. Nearly at the end, I pulled a Bobby Orr, falling in an epic fashion and scraping the skin off my leg. One of my friends got married to her high school sweetheart in a chapel in upstate New York. My sister and I camped instead of getting a hotel room. I actually went camping every weekend in the summer of 2013, and I hope for a repeat in 2014. I was blessed enough to visit Hampton Beach several times and Martha’s Vineyard for the first time ever.
And finally, the nose! I got a new one in June. My nose has been broken since age 3, when I apparently fell so hard I bloodied my whole face. The doctor couldn’t tell my nose was broken because it was so small, but as it grew in, the severe damage became apparent. Most people, being used to my face, say they never noticed the angle of my nose. This is very generous of them, because my nose was smashed enough to be 35 degrees off center…like I was constantly facing a different direction. More importantly, the smashed nose never had air holes- I’ve never been able to breathe through my nose. In June, this mouth-breather went under the knife for a complete reconstructive surgery and septoplasty. Rehab was painful at best but relatively short. The doctor entirely redid the inside of my nose and I’m happy to report that I now look as if I never had an accident. This fun photo is taken the day after the surgery, an hour before my eyes swelled shut. I am very grateful for the work of the doctor, for my fantastic insurance plan and for my new-found ability to breathe through my nose.