this year

i spent this new year's eve at home with my family and our closest friends. they brought with them so many memories and so much love.

during the final minutes of last year, we each ate twelve grapes for twelve wishes (a tradition in many latin american countries). but time and time again, i can never come up with enough wishes. the wishing voice in my head grows bored and yawns and all i hear is mindless noise.

we all gathered around the television screen, zoomed in on times square. 

5,4,3,2,1... 

then the new year was born of excited cheers and a dozen embraces. we poured glasses of champagne and laughed and smiled because everything is possible in the beginning of things. i love this night.

maybe this year, we can get it right.

the adults stayed inside while the younger ones took to the front yard to light fireworks. we littered the night air with kaleidoscopical sparks that rose and fell. they were swallowed by the ink sky before touching ground, until all that was left of them were blurred white spots on the insides of our eyelids.

as the night wore on, eyes grew heavy with sleep and the guests slowly trickled out the front door. and, one by one, we dropped like flies into an excited, restless sleep.

the next morning, we were off to disney world where we spent a day in the epcot theme park. 

naturally, the park was swarming with bright eyed little ones. they were never still: their hands grabbed the empty air and their eyes looked around at nothing but saw everything. their imaginations were rampant and it made me remember. in them, i saw myself many years back- when i was a young dreamer of milk skin and a head full of midnight hair, with round eyes and a bright mouth. my mind was fresh spun cotton candy and the smell of cut grass and swingsets and dark water. it was a world all its own.

the mind of a child is so beautiful, uninhibited by insecurity and doubt. they are anything they imagine. now that i am older i find myself forgetting that child who held hands with invisible friends and loved nothing more than to make believe. but i must remember that that child was not me. she is me. and nothing is keeping me from dreaming loud as i did then.

this year, let your imagination run wild.

xo