In the ensuing days since December 31^st, I keep finding new bruises.  One on my shin (darkening, still, as of this morning), a smattering of small ones on my thigh and arm.  A large one on the back of my thigh, two square inches and a deep purple-black.  All self-inflicted, not on purpose—not really—but the result of a few hours of banging around drunk.  Purposefully drunk.

Every New Year’s Eve since I turned 21 has been same verse, same as the first.  I have spotty memories of them, woven in and out of drinking games and one final magnum opus, the moment when it all reverses and I vomit until I no longer can.

It’s cleansing, in an exceedingly fucked up way.  I start each new year with an empty stomach and an insidious headache, sleep away that first day.  Sleep away the memories.

That first year—21, the end of 2006, the beginning of 2007—is full of other meaning and connections.  The last time I was completely untethered, the end of the Big Bad Hurt, the almost-end of us.  By the end of the day, January 1^st 2007, I would have lost an engagement.  I would realize, truly, for the first time how close I was to really losing everything.  I would realize that I had lost my mind.

***

My best friend eschews digital cameras, for the most part, sneering at a technology that allows us to have what he refers to as “instant nostalgia.”

This semester, my friend Charlie has dutifully toted his camera around at night, documenting our drinks and the way we sink into each other as the night progresses.  In the mornings after, when I wake up on someone else’s couch [or when he wakes up on mine], I download the pictures into a folder on my hard drive.

I take advantage of this so-called “instant nostalgia,” track all of the pictures he has surreptitiously taken.  Pictures of the side of my head, or my pointed glare into the camera—wielding a smirk, dimples blazing.

And one picture from New Year’s Eve—post-ball drop, at the very edge of my memories.  1/10 of the nights of the year I wore my hair straight and down.  1/3 of the nights of the year I wore high heels.

A genius picture, really—though probably not intentional.  “Serendipity,” as it goes.  “A beautiful mistake.”

On the right side of the picture, I am laughing.  Loud, it would appear.  And on the left side, an expanse of kitchen between us, the same boy who broke an engagement three years ago.  [He’s laughing too].

***

It’s been more than a thousand days since that first year, the first time I ever puked from over-drinking and the day I almost lost everything.  The days since then have seen the biggest changes—I’ve gotten used to nightly meds and psychotheraphy, gotten used to feeling desperate in the grocery store when I’ve forgotten the previous night’s Lamictal.  I’ve gotten used to trying to decipher my moods—and used to sometimes failing.  I’ve gotten used to divulging my bad habits to my best friend and my psychiatrist.  I don’t know if I’ll ever spend a New Year’s Eve without feeling sad, without wanting to empty my stomach or hurt myself crawling up [and falling off] banisters.  And I’ve stopped pretending that I’ll never feel the hard things ever again—I’ll never be done with sadness or frustration or longing.  And I’ve stopped pretending that I’ll ever be 100% ok with the idea that I can’t have a 100% normal life (whatever such a thing is…).

So, on January 1^st of this year, I wrote this:

“At the end of the year, I sometimes feel pretty. And sometimes hurt or overwhelmed. Sometimes filled with soul-shattering longing. Sometimes blessed and fulfilled. Sometimes invincible.”

The most I think about these words, the more I feel the gravity and the truth in them.  The reality of my life is that I have an illness that sparks a shift in emotions, that once swung me in and out of moods that I could barely recognize, much less control.  But now, I get to experience the most beautiful and real emotions—crushing sadness, blossoming anger, the frustration that makes me shake in my shoes.

And happiness.  The kind that leaves you laughing in a kitchen with someone who could have left.  But didn’t.