The transitional living apartment complex where Jarrod and I live does not allow us to have overnight guests in our apartments. There's no curfew, but one cannot have a guest in her or his apartment past 9 p.m. It put a slight damper on our New Year's Eve plans. We asked for a special exception to be made since it was a holiday, but no such luck ensued. And we were dead broke at the end of the month, so we were resigned to a dinner of cheap Totino's party pizzas, a board game, and home to our respective apartments by nine.
But we made a solid vow to stay awake and meet up outside at midnight, to make sure we started the year off right, in each other's presence.
This was the first New Year's of my 44 years on this planet that I actually had someone to kiss at midnight. Sure, on a couple New Year's Eves in the past, friends had gathered for a party and we'd make one of those rather silly arrangements to pair up the men and women for a platonic kiss, just for the tradition of it, but it was never anything special and didn't even satisfy my want for the tradition anyway (no offense, you male buddies of mine who know who you are).
But as Jarrod and I stood outside at 11:56 p.m. last night, listening as the fireworks, gunfire, and voices started to increase, we drew close together and shared a real kiss to start our year, the year when things will solidify in our lives, the year when we will be married, the year our housing will go from transitional to transitioned.
2013 was hard on me, as it was for a lot of people, I hear. It started out in the darkest time of my life, and I'm fairly certain the darkest time of Jarrod's as well. But if any of those dire pains had not occurred - the illnesses, the financial distress, the homelessness - we would not have ended up in the lifeboat together and chosen love over desperation. So I'm not sad to see 2013 go, but I sure look forward to 2014. Happy New Year to my love, and to all of you.
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