bittersweet.

A few days prior to the end of 2014, I sat down to write a recap of the year. It turned into a huge, bullet-pointed list of memories from what truly was one of the best years of my life. I graduated college with some of the best friendships I ever could ask for, I traveled with wonderful people, I moved to a new city and started a grown-up job, I adopted a cat, I began new friendships and learned a lot about myself. I have to give credit where credit is due: 2014 was, overall, an absolutely amazing year.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston writes, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” As beautiful as that statement is, I’m going to go ahead and say that it’s wrong. Are there any years that are exclusively for asking questions? Or any years exclusively for answering? I’m not trying to pick her statement apart—I’m just saying that, based on my personal experience, each year ends with its own set of answers in addition to its own endless list of questions, new and old. 

Up until about October, I would have called 2014 a year of answers. However, as it goes, life had a different plan. In mid-November the rug was pulled out from under me. And I was okay—for a little bit. But December came, and I subsequently entered what was one of the darkest times in my life. I am not exaggerating:  this was a brokenness unlike anything I had ever experienced. It turns out that in my attempts to piece myself back together following the events of November, I completely sabotaged my healing process. As a result, I closed out 2014 at eggshell status:  fragile, pretty hollow, and ready to crack at a moment’s notice. So, there it was--a huge question mark to place at the end of 2014.

As I told Emily, I have never been more relieved to finish the holidays and to move into a new year.  “Bittersweet” is the best word for this moment, I believe. Never have I felt the two extremes of the word so powerfully at once:  the bitterness—but also the sweetness—of unanswered questions. 

I have been waiting to publish this post because I couldn’t figure out what direction I wanted to take for the ending. It is my nature in writing to tie everything together, to end with the essay-style conclusion in which I make everything I’ve stated make sense. But this is what I am learning:  loose ends do not always tie up how and when we want them to. There is not always a smooth or obvious resolution; there is not always a way to make everything make sense. In some cases, there never will be—the ends will never be tied into a pretty little bow. Questions will remain without answers.

And, somehow, that has to be okay.