two oh one three.

Student champagne.

2012 was an incredible year for me, easily one for the books.

At the end of 2011, I was finding myself floating in Worker's Purgatory. I had a job that allowed me to live more than comfortably and had the luxury apartment I'd always wanted, but I was spending 40-50 hours/week at a desk doing work I didn't plan to spend my life doing.

At this point, I had put myself through three semesters of night school already and was moving toward my BA at a painfully slow pace. It occurred to me around the end of November that if I wanted to get my life moving in the direction I wanted, I was going to have to return to school full time. It was frustrating to think about the changes that decision would come with, though, and I wasn't ready to give up financial stability to return to being a poor college student. Lucky for me, I didn't have to make that decision. It was made for me about two weeks later. And God bless 'em.

The day I lost my job, I went back to my fancy, upscale apartment where my equally unemployed roommate was job-searching and told her she had my 30-days notice to do with as she pleased. Then, I said the three words I had dreaded needing to ever say since I moved out of my parents' house at the naïve age of 19: "I'm going home." And I was surprisingly excited about it.

I spent the next month doing... whatever the fuck I wanted. It was fantastic. With the help of my brother and a few friends, all my belongings and my terrified, anxiety-stricken tabby were completely moved back into my old bedroom on January 14th, 2012. Yes, that means that in 14 days, I'll have been home a year.

So... here's what I've done since I moved back in with my parents 1 year (-14 days) ago:

• Completed 8 courses (with all As and Bs) toward my BA in Psychology
• Reconnected with friends and built new relationships with them
• Took my Birthright trip to Israel (which also meant leaving the country for the first time in my life and doing about 1 million other things that terrify me)
• Ran my first 5K
• Went rock-climbing (and actually learned I'm pretty good at it)
• Got my first tattoo
• Shot my first wedding
• Became a two-time bar trivia champion (team effort, of course)
• Sang with a band in a bar a few times
• Put my arms around Ed Sheeran (mmm)
• Went to my 3rd (and last) Warped Tour
• Attended a Masquerade Ball to benefit JDRF

And I'm sure a lot more I'm blanking on. Point is, it was a pretty sick year and 2013 has a lot to compete with. So here's to a very happy, very healthy 2013: may it keep me on my toes and continue to challenge me to push harder, fight stronger, and never stop learning.

-- In memory of Sammy Rubenstein, Jan 2012 --