On January 1st, 2007 I made a resolution to finish everything I start.

I have a closet full of knitting needles with half knit scarves. Books on bookshelves with bookmarks two thirds of the way in in. Two novels each a sixth written. Four glasses of water of varying volumes and ages on my nightstand. Pieces of music with four movements in which I have only learned one. Five thousand, five hundred, and twenty eight songs out of eight thousand, one hundred, and eighty three, in my iTunes library that I haven't listened to the whole way through.

I can barely finish my sentences.  And when I do, they are mere fragments of sentences.

Three hundred and fifty three days later and it's almost finished. Five days and the hardest year of my life will be over. I can't wrap what I learned this year around my neck, I can't quote page 250 of a Hemingway or Phillip Ball, play the double-tounged thirty second notes in Poulencs Sonata, and I will most likely pour the stale water in those glasses out. 

But this extends far beyond warm necks and literature. Beyond substance, matter, the concrete or visible. Beyond wasted glasses of water, one quarter full. 

I'm leaving with new friendships, new values, ideas, opinions, attitude. I'm leaving with a new perception, a new definition. Strength, spirit, appreciation. Awareness. Experience. Knowledge. Certainty, or a new inspiration to find it. Independence. I found the maturity it takes to be immature. Because adults are sometimes boring four-sided figures who forget how to laugh. I've learned what it takes to raise a family, what it means to be a good friend and how to tell when you've found one. I've learned how to undo belt buckles and jean buttons with one hand without looking, and how to spot a lie from even the most practiced of liars. I've learned how to drink beer without making a face, the consequences of letting a man get the best of you, the ability to say NO when I want to say no, swiss etiquette, and how to make mulled wine. 

I've learned to let loose in a country where seemingly no one knows how to let loose. 

And I've learned about myself in all of that. Accepted who I've been and where it has taken me. And I've realized everything I'm capable of despite the cruelty everyone else is capable of. 

I'm ready. For whatever lies ahead.