January 1, 2019
I started the new year off in another state across the great divide of the Pacific Ocean. It was odd being there during the turn of the year, a sense of old making way for new. I spent the previous evening, New Year’s Eve at the docks near the hotel. Today was lowkey, even though I confirmed I do have a respiratory infection. I hoped it wasn’t that–it had been three years after all, so potentially that could have changed. But instead, after sitting in a Hawai’ian clinic, I was prescribed medication and then joined the other kids on our excursions for the day.
We visited both the zoo and aquarium in the morning, which had more of an impact on me than I expected. Nearly 75% of native Haiwaiian species are extinct, and I see it in the trees and the animals and the ocean, the prevalence of invasive species a mark on the island itself. When we went to Haunama Bay the other day, the reef was overgrown with algae for the most part, the dying and dead coral blackened on the bed of the Bay. And my heart broke a little more with each passing.
Kassie, Sydney, and I rented mopeds in the afternoon with Emma and Ryel. I practically signed my life away with the waivers they handed to us on a silver platter, but I took the risk anyway. We made up quite the bunch, sisters and step-sisters alike running alongside each other as we drove Honolulu by bike. The traffic unnerved me, but the wind whipped across my face as we rode along the roads, and the cars passed by the in the left lane as we all turned into a shopping center for lunch. I felt and odd sense of peace, then, eating cheap conveyor-belt sushi while we rested in the restaurant.
We drove up to Diamondhead National Park, after, to see the volcanic crater overlooking Honolulu. Sydney and I got lost along the way, driving the mopeds down the streets of the suburbs, residential areas and the quaint houses in the hills passing us by. We turned onto a main road winding upwards into the crater, a steep cliff jutting into the sky, and the mouth of a tunnel emerged near the end of the path. Once the tunnel passed overhead, its dim lights shooting by in the darkness, the dark gave way to the light of the late afternoon sun. The land spread out before in rolling greens spilling upward into the rocky ridge cresting the horizon. The wind whipped around our heads, hair trailing out of our helmets, and I breathed in the ocean breeze and breathed out some of my fears from the prior year.
We never made it up to the crest.
But I didn’t mind.
I was a different person.
The sun set on 2018, and I spent the last hours of the year watching the Honolulu sun fall under the horizon on the beach next to the hotel. I sat on the dock as I watched others film it, my hands rather empty in the moment. I left empty-handed that day, no photos left in the folder on my phone. I heard fireworks crackle outside the balcony of that small hotel room at midnight later that evening, and even though I had a killer respiratory infection on what should have been a relaxing vacation others, I reflected on the past twelve months.
I realized how different a person I was from the beginning of the year. Some of my goals for the year were met, some were not. I fell quite a few times, but always got back up. I left some people behind who I knew weren’t worth the time or energy, and I gained a (very) precious, and treasured, few. I tried to surround myself with positivity and encouragement, focusing on self-love and improvement. I know I’ll always have setbacks, but looking at what I’ve gained is just as important.
Looking back now on the decade laid before me, at all of the different places where I placed my heart and trust in others when they failed me, and all of the places where those seeds of love and trust have sprouted, I feel so full of gratitude for how far I’ve come. At the beginning of the decade, I had little I truly enjoyed, pockets of happiness tucked away in the corners of long afternoons and nights that felt like they lasted years. I compared myself, for years, to the success of others, not realizing the own successes in my life. But knowing what I do now, and approaching each day with a willingness to fail and hurt and tumble, I want to also approach this incoming decade with a newfound fervor.
Sam