Hello 2013, You Should Be Interesting

After the soul-suck that was this year's holiday season, we wanted to do something life-affirming to ring in the new year. So, we lit stuff on fire.

After two deaths, an out-of-state trip for him and a few days alone in the woods during heavy rains for me, the usual wonderful/terrible trip to the city on xmas day, the exhaustion that inevitably comes with it and follows, topped off by my boyfriend hurting his back chopping wood and being laid out for several days, we certainly weren't looking to go to any New Year's parties. We pretty much just wanted to stay home, in our pajamas, and eat cookies while watching movies.

But, there's been such a layer of quiet despair over things, I knew we needed to do something to move forward, past the struggles we were experiencing. With him barely able to walk and me being migrainy like I am, there isn't a long list of things we could do. Also, we're broke, all the time, so we couldn't just throw money at the problem.

"We should do something with fire," I'd commented to my boyfriend, "A bonfire? Or maybe write out 2013 in sticks and set it ablaze." I was just thinking out loud, but he pounced on the idea and ran with it.

I was cursing myself and my big mouth that night. I was cold, and grumpy because it was past my bedtime, and in that moment, standing in the mud, in the dark, looking up at our little house and thinking how warm it is in front of the stove, I was also a little worried. The smell of gasoline is never reassuring. But, my boyfriend knew exactly what he was doing and he even brought the hose over, just in case the muddy, still-saturated-from-nearly-three-weeks-of-rain forest floor had a mind to ignite. Which it did not, at all.

He lit the 3 in 2013 and the sudden burst of flame made me jump. It died back down within a second and I hurried to get some good shots.

After the fire was out, we snuggled in bed and watched movies until midnight, and I fell asleep at about 12:04. A perfect ending to an imperfect year.