I started 2015 comfortable. On the floor of an apartment in Manhattan, in my pajamas and under blankets and with one of my best friends and pizza and the ball drop on TV. We stood on the balcony in the cold and watched people stumble, drunk and happy, up 2^nd avenue after the clock struck midnight.

I spent 2015 scared. In New York and in DC. In Maryland and Massachusetts. Not always, but enough that I felt like I had something lurking in the back of my mind pushing me forward. The fear of stagnation can be a powerful motivator.

I’m ending 2015 cautiously optimistic. This year has felt like a year of development; new places, new people, starting my senior year of college, starting to make choices about where I want to go and who I want to be--- next year feels like a year of action; college graduation (finally), a job (I hope!) and all the new and scary things that come with starting the next stage of everything.

This has been a long year and a strange one, and one that I’m still processing. It feels like a year where I grew a lot, but also a year I realized how much growing I still have to do. A year where I made some good changes and also stalled out in some places, and through the mix-mash of 365 days, came out the other side still looking up.

I want to leave some of my fears in 2015. My fear of never living up to my own expectations or the expectations of others; that only makes me put unhealthy pressures on myself. My fear of rejection—I get so scared to reach out to other people when I need them that I suffer through in silence, even though rationally I know that there are people in my life who would love to hear from me. My fear of the future, and the ways that it’s unfolding, no matter how prepared or unprepared I feel.

I want to bring some of the things I’ve discovered about myself in 2016. My willingness to try new things and my willingness to go new places. My bleeding heart and my open mind. The things I’ve learned, and the things I have been conscious of needing to learn more about. The friends I’ve made in all of the places I’ve been, and all the places I’ve been where I’ve begun to learn a little more. I’ve found a lot this year. And I’m proud of that.

This year I’ve climbed mountains. I’ve sung songs around campfires and taken long bus rides where I’ve done nothing but listen to the same song on repeat for hours at a time. I’ve written words that I’m proud of and words that rereading makes me cringe. I’ve gotten good report cards and done horribly on biology tests. I’ve taken photos that I’m proud of, and spent much, much too much time with my head in the clouds. I’ve read a lot—fiction and non-fiction, long-form and newspapers, articles from friends and books my grandma sent me in the mail. I’ve gone to concerts and Broadway musicals and high school talent shows. I’ve tried new things, and not always liked the things I’ve tried. I’ve gotten better at saying “yes,” despite the fear and at saying “no,” despite the disappointment.

I think I’m ready for a new year. I’m not caught up in the idea that a new year is a new start, but it is a new milestone. I’m ready to carry over. To take all the things I’ve done and make them more. Make them bigger and better, and different in the ways I want them to be different.

So here goes. Here goes another year of all of that. Of the curiosity and the anxiousness and love and fear and all the emotions in between. I’m ready to feel (and experience) them all.

I’m a little impressed that today I managed to both be asleep before my flight took off and also only wake up from the shake of the wheels hitting the ground. I think I stirred once or twice in between during my two-hour flight, but mostly I just slept. Head against the window. Thousands of miles above the ground.

It’s been a crazy week. I was at the URJ Biennial, the largest gathering of Jewish life in the entire world. I worked hard. Long days, late nights and early mornings. My feet are sore and my eyes are drooping still, but I saw and learned and experienced so much.

My writing has kind of fallen by the wayside this week. It’s taken a backseat to answering questions from old ladies wearing nametags and teens wandering convention center halls. To listening to Ambassadors and the Vice President. To wearing a hideous bright red fleece vest in a climate where fleece vests should be outlawed. To spending time with my parents and my grandmother and my friends from both costs and the states held in between.

I’m going to sleep now. It’s too early, but I’m too tire to wait. I’m going to sleep late and wake up and move on. Go to school. Do my homework. Get back in the swing of things.

Today is Sunday. Tomorrow is Monday. The days have passed quickly, but that’s because they’ve been so full.

It’s strange moving so rapidly between such a large scale experience and the every day swing of things. Between 5000 people in a plenary listening to Joe Biden and 12 people in a classroom listening to my health professor. I like both, in their own times, though I don’t think I could live in one reality without the other to balance it. I love those soaring highs and I love that routine. I love getting to live a life that has both comfort and adventure.

I’m not good at love stories, which is funny because I am generally a fairly sappy person. I’m not like, rooting against love. I just don’t need to personally witness it. Basically what I’m saying is I never grew out of being the kid in The Princess Bride “Is this a kissing book?”

I don’t want to read the kissing book.

Today is my parents 25^th wedding anniversary. To me twenty-five years seems like an unfathomable amount of time for two people to be together, but that’s probably because it’s longer then I’ve been alive.

My parents are spending their anniversary in separate places. My mother, home in Bowie, working the Bowie city elections. My father, in Orlando, working the URJ biennial. Mom’s flying out to Florida tomorrow, but even if they aren’t t together, their day still feels like an amalgamation of how they met.

The American Jewish Congress doesn’t really exist any more. But when it did, it was a combination of American politics and Jewish ethical and moral beliefs that managed to hook both of my parents in to taking jobs.

They worked together for a while, they worked other jobs, my dad went to law school, they moved a few times, they got married, had a couple kids, bought a house…..

A lot has happened in those 25 years.

I’m still not so in to the kissing stories, but I kind of like my parent’s. They balance each other. They still love each other. And they work together to bring all kinds of wonderful things (and people :]) in to the world.

I’ve gotten a lot from my parents. My crazy hair and my bad eyesight. My loud laugh and my politics. My need to always be right and my desire to make people laugh. My bleeding heart and my bad attitude. I’m grateful for all the gifts they have given me.

So congrats to my parents on 25 years. Here is to many, many more.