stories about you, me, nothing, and everything.

Three years ago on my new years resolution, I put “Meet David Blaise” as just part of wishful thinking….. and then it actually happened.

The night before New Years Eve always holds some kind of significance to me. It may be the fact that I always find myself at the end of the day alone in front of a notebook or a computer, and by default reflecting on the year that has passed. If last year, on this night, you told me what my life was like today without explaining anything that has happened throughout the year that has gotten me here, I probably wouldn’t believe you. So much has changed and I have grown so much this single year.

Last year on this night, a boy got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. I specifically remember feeling like I was going into a new year that had something waiting for me; Like something had just started and the actual story has yet to happen. Well, I can confidently say that that story finally ended. I wore the ring that that boy got me for six months before taking it off. Today, I bought myself my own ring.

In 2011 I fell in love, got my heart exchanged, trampled, and forgotten about, fell out of love, lost my best friend, and essentially lost myself. However in 2011, I also experienced love and how beautiful it is to be so connected with one person, I experienced a lot of new and wonderful things, I met and opened up to people that I am so grateful to have in my life, and most importantly, I learned that it is possible for things to get better again, and through everything that I’ve fought through this year, I gained a newfound strength within me. This year has not been easy, at all. But I made it.

Jack and I were walking towards Time Square, and as we stopped at a corner, waiting for the cars and the taxi cabs to drive through in their usual glacial pace as the crowd of people blindly looked, I looked up at him and realized what was actually happening.

“Honestly, you are one of the last people I expected to be walking the streets of New York City with. I can’t believe you actually made your way over here,” I admitted.

“I know, me too, but I had good reason,” he said, smiling. The “Walk” signal lit up and, being a step in front of me, I watched his tall frame walk along the concrete of my city. I watched his curly hair and his broad shoulders under a black coat move in time with the people of my city. I caught up with him, closing in on the distance between us, exchanging an entire country for just a few centimeters.

When we finally made it to the center of the square, he looked up at all the billboards. Hands dug deep in his pockets, eyes fixated at the towers cradling the two of us and all the other mounds of people, but his feet lightly stepped in circles so he could take in every single light and every single message plastered so high on all the buildings. I experienced the excitement and sheer amazement of being in this wonderful city of mine for the first time again through his eyes.

I think one of the most wonderful parts about having friends in different states is seeing them again. We live our lives separately, each having a different day to day norm and a different town to call our playground. We are all dots on different parts of the map. Yet we are all connected through the memories we share in one dot in particular, and through these memories we share a bond that only we have. These kids that I met two years ago (I can’t believe it’s already been almost two years), know me a lot differently than my friends here do. We know each other through the present, meaning that it doesn’t matter what our backgrounds are or how we are perceived in our towns; all we know is that we like each other’s company and from there we build a relationship, knowing each other without judging. When my friends come visit me here, I get to show them a part of me that I didn’t get to when I first met them. New York becomes our playground. In between the buildings the ground uprooted, we run around taking advantage of how we’ve managed to connect two dots on the map, much closer than they already were.

He lives in LA, and today, there will no longer be an entire country between us.

=’]