A Look Back...Sort of...

It is one day before the last day of the year (New Year’s Eve Eve?) I am sitting at home – well, my old home – typing this out on my bed as I recover from my long day out trying to find some distractions in the places where I enjoyed my teen years (I mean the local mall, of course). My mother, recovering from a cold, is now forced to watch Monday Night Football with my stepfather and pretend to enjoy it. I have an old guitar, some Duolingo courses and plenty of books to distract me, along with another prompt for another story (over 500 words already written). And my mind is already racing ahead to what 2025 will bring. But let’s not forget the year we are about to lose…

Lose? Oh, yes. I see the end of any year as a loss of sorts. It was not one of the best years to celebrate. We lost celebrities, stars, figures from our youth and the like, but that happens every year. That is the problem with looking back. You are forced to contend with looking forward and consider who or what else can be lost.

You are thinking to yourself right now: great, he’s going to get political. Well, maybe. The personal is always political, as someone once said. I went out today to head to a mall that I saw being built and now recognize as something that I no longer recognize. My family slipped out and did not leave me a note when I needed to know if my mother’s cold was much more serious than she suspected (fortunately, it was not). I had a long and listless night of no sleep, yet I stayed bright-eyed and energetic enough to get some exercise, consider a last-minute gift for my mother (another book), and what the new year will do to my sense of self.

Resolutions? No, thank you, I never make them anymore. I feel that you have to do things without the simple convenience of a time marker as shaky and inaccurate as a calendar. There is much more overlap in life between events than we would like to admit, and time can only laugh and scoff at our determination to pin things down with arbitrary numbers and dates.

My 2024 was full of highs and lows that were worthy of particular articles on this page. I had no contracts, but money in the bank. I was forced to move, and then had no money in the bank. I was given many extra contracts with the different schools I teach for, and began to wonder if it was worth the money in the bank. And then, coming home to see the family, I learned once again that the money in the bank means very little once you reach certain stages in life. My mother and stepfather are quite frail, and yet act like they can still do anything around the home that needs to be done. My brother lives not too far away, as do other relatives who still drop by, and he worries for me. Or, so I thought. I have often been asked if I would like to move back to the grey-and-brown-vision that is my hometown. I have also joked that to do so would be to tempt fate, and that murder-suicide is frowned upon in polite society (I know that someone would find me unbearable after a point and take me out). And then we all laugh.

Ha, ha. Ha.

Seriously, I know that there is a part of me that is glad that 2024 is going to end soon, and that I will be back in a much more cosmopolitan city to continue having the life I chose that many others in my community cannot understand. But I wonder about all of our futures. I wonder what 2025 will bring.

And yes, I will try to work on at least one other Challenge some day, along with one of my more sharp-edged haikus and poetic pieces. But this is supposed to be the time of the year when I take a break, rest, and step away from responsibilities.

Not sure if I will ever learn that lesson…

Happy 2025?

;)

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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