2007
So here’s to you, 2007.
How do you measure a year? The RENT cast measured it in daylights, sunsets, midnights, cups of coffee–and love. Some people measure it in time–525,600 minutes.
I know there are a bunch of self-assessment surveys floating around, and as much as I enjoy reading others’, I can’t seem to quantify my year in the number of hookups, the number of births or deaths, or how much more or less money I have. Sure I am prettier, healthier and a little more wealthy, but I attribute that to getting over skin meds withdrawal, not eating on the school meal plan, and finally having my labour certificate.
In economics last year, I was introduced to the concept of quantifying happiness. Perplexingly called “utility,” it was somehow understood–if not assigned–that the happiness from eating the second slice of pizza was lower than the first. It gave happiness a numerical value. My professor, however, assured me that this was a gross simplification of one’s buying habits and that people instead ranked the happiness they would get from buying an item or activity. Sure I prefer french onion soup over cheese fries, and museum hopping over drinking cheap beer in a tiny dorm room. I would now like to take the opportunity to remove myself from theorizing economics forever. I didn’t do very well in that class. It handed me the first C+ of my post-secondary academic career.
What it did teach me, however, was that I can no sooner quantify happiness than I can quantify (or even rank) friendships. Last year was a year of discovery, this year was a year of comfort and antiquity. Every year is a year of evaluation. Last year was more about forming new friendships, while this year was about solidifying–or re-igniting–old ones. I don’t deny the latter perhaps came at the expense of the former, but to Stars’ ethereal and self-assuring mantra, “I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save.” Why regret anything?
I know what I am and what I like. I view the world in a very rosy and exacting way. I do believe, that even in the most distressing times, I will continue to govern my life by the laws of beauty. I even know what I’m good at, what I take pleasure in, and what I can do. I didn’t know this last year, and I still don’t know how I’m going to get there. Where am I going? In the wise words of Remy the Rat, “With any luck, forward.”
It’s been a plodding journey so far, plop, plop, slower than a horse-drawn carriage. Uphill. In three feet of snow. There have been plenty of slips and missteps, several occasions where I felt like going backwards–or worse, falling. But I trust the horse, and my travelling companions, as nobody said we had it do it all ourselves and like, why can’t we play UNO on the way?
I guess I measure my year in progress. Well, that and haircuts.