Happy New Year!

Happy new year, readers! I spent my new years eve on a little balcony outside in my student building, a photo of my mom beside me and a little two-serving champagne bottle to fill my glass. The Dutch take New Year's Eve seriously: one of the few things I knew to expect, from chatting with other immigrants from the States, was that fireworks would be happening for a week or more beforehand, a week or more afterward, and that if I was a person who didn't like fireworks, it would be wise for me to get out of the city for at least a week surrounding the holiday.

I took that all in with a grain of salt, but boy they were not kidding. The fireworks displays went on as far as the eye could see for almost an hour after midnight, and even then they simply tuned down a little bit. By the time I was asleep somewhere around 3am, there were still pops going off. And the first ones had begun before sundown early that day, around 4:30 in the afternoon.

I happen to be someone who loves fireworks. Consider them a problematic fave. Despite all of their downsides, I love the sight, the smell, the sounds, the feel of them booming in my chest. I love the way they are evidence of humanity celebrating loudly and visibly together. I love how old they are, how long they've been dazzling human eyes and ears and how pure a joy it is to shoot color into the heavens and watch it burst against a dark sky.

The fireworks view from high up in the student building

So I wasn't disappointed at the turning of the year: instead I found myself brought to tears, and crying while watching the celebrations before me and thinking of all the things to be grateful for. I thought about being a kid, allowed to clamor up to the roof of the house with my siblings, ensconced in a blanket, to catch a peek at the fireworks show that happened at a field near our neighborhood. I thought of traveling out to the countryside with my dad to find fireworks that would be against a truer black sky than could ever be seen in a city, I thought about all the ends of years that came and went both good and bad, and of all the new years tat started out with such hope only to end in disappointment - and all the years that started out dull and ended up extraordinary.

I don't do resolutions, nor try to force myself to make any changes based on just the calendar date. But I do try and recognize the coming and going of the seasons, and acknowledge what has been accomplished, what needs to be done, and what things can be let go. Last year was tumultuous. The end of 2024 was one of the scariest in my life, and it lead straight into a whirlwind year of desperate change. I harbor a lot of resentment for the circumstances that brought me here, right alongside the immense gratitude for being where I am. I try to give myself a little grace, though doing so is difficult when there is so much uncertainty and so much to be done, and remind myself that one year is hardly a drop in the bucket, and so much has changed in just the past four months, that certainly the year ahead of my will bring with it both more change and much needed stability. The dust will settle, as it were. And I hope by the end of 2026, my partner and our kitties will be by my side; our whole little family together to face the future together. And I hope that all of you, too, will find yourselves with the people most important to you as you say farewell to one year and step into the next.

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This is my first winter in Europe, and I still don't quite know what to expect. The new year rolled in cold but clear, and immediately afterward the country was dumped upon by a great deal of snow and wind, resulting in this week being defined by cancelled trains and flights and, in my case, all classes being held remotely. There's another storm on the horizon, and the general consensus is that we're going to be effectively snowed in for a while now. The actual volume of snow is less than what I'd expect in say a Colorado storm, but because everything runs on transit here, it's a problem when tracks and runways and streets and bike paths are iced. There's not the same kind of infrastructure to handle ice and snow, and there is a great deal more to be deiced to get the transit systems fully up and running again. I haven't yet braved the bike paths wit my own bicycle yet: when I've gone out I've gone on foot and by bus, doing errands in the middle of the day and which don't rely on anything being on time, lest there are unexpected delays.

My roommate left before Christmas to take the holidays back home, and I have no idea if he willingly extended his stay into the new block of courses, or has been frozen out of returning, but either way, I've had the apartment to myself for a few weeks, and though pleasant enough to have the space at my disposal, it's been oddly quiet. It's been the first time I've been truly alone in a living space since 2017, when I adopted my cat Atticus. And before then, I'd only lived alone for a few months before adopting him. It's strange to be the only conscious being wandering around in an entire living space. Strange and lonely.

A slightly edited picture of the snowy landscape outside

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With that, I thank you all for tuning in, and thank you again to everyone who wished me a happy new year, sent a letter or card, or surprised me with an unexpected package! I very much appreciate you all for reading along and checking in, and I hope this year surprises us all with great things.

Many hugs and mugs of hot cocoa from a very cold Amsterdam. I'll see you in two weeks!

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