Just Once More
On endings, the hope of doing it again, and the weight of what lies ahead
Grey mittens with embroidered snowflakes on each wrist are the only things between my hands and a sub-zero degree steering wheel. I keep them in the glove box of my bright red 2005 Ford Fusion. I’ll always forget to start it early enough that it’s at an adequate temperature before I have to leave, so they serve as damage control for the abrasive chill of a Wisconsin winter.
New Year’s Eve, I drove home from a friend’s house, pressing my hands into the heating vents while ‘Auld Lang Syne’ ripped through the speakers. I began exploring the handful of ways I could narrate my life for “the best reinvention anyone has ever seen.” A dramatically mysterious original experience, some may say.
I am convinced I could get from my childhood home on Boland Road to almost anywhere with my eyes pierced shut. I could find my way to each of my friends’ houses, the restaurant I worked at for four years, my favorite cafe, and both high schools I attended.
It was last winter that these gloves were yanked from their place just below the collection of napkins from various drive-throughs, and this time around, I found myself excited, if not relieved, by their consistent presence.
Returning to reality after being away for any period of time often fills me with the kind of gut-wrenching melancholy of someone behaving as if it is the last time they will be experiencing the holiday season. The last time I will be hugging someone, the last time I’ll eat a sub-par enchilada from my favorite Americanized Mexican establishment, and the last time I’ll feel the visceral relief of opening that glove box to see these god-forsaken gloves shoved inside.
Why do I insist on turning ordinary actions into endings?
I do this every time I return to Wisconsin, but it reveals itself just as clearly in New York, the place I can truly call home. If I create a context in which everything I do is endangered, then perhaps I’ll be better prepared for its inevitable disappearance. By calling it the last time I’ll eat a shitty enchilada surrounded by my closest friends, it won’t disappoint me as much when it finally rings true. Right. Because life is famously that predictable!
Somewhere along my drive, nostalgia curdled into performance. I began acting like someone on the verge of losing everything when, in fact, the simple pleasures of my life haven’t disappeared at all; I’ve just been obnoxiously committed to narrating them that way. It is a privilege to feel so deeply. But it’s also a privilege to relish the joys of simply existing without bracing for absence, without rushing to turn presence into loss, and instead trusting the hope of “doing it again soon.”
As I move through life, I struggle to narrate myself in the present moment rather than in a constant forward motion. This instinct makes reflection easy, though it sharpens regret: each moment followed by the thought that I should’ve stayed inside of it. Like most “lasts,” I don’t often recognize they’ve happened. They only truly reveal themselves through laughter and conversation with the people I love—long after the fact.
Simply put, my promise to myself in the New Year is this: to stop treating things as if they’re endings and instead live for the quiet hope of seeing you soon and coming back again.
January 1st is a monumental landmark reminding me how much life I have left to live. My portfolio of grievances will grow, and my skin will thicken. I have a lot ahead of me. Though I’m not sure that I want thicker skin. I think I want to approach the world around me a little more softly.
I’ll keep those gloves where they’ve always been. This was not my last winter or my last time driving a car, and how lucky am I to know that familiarity isn’t something I’m losing, but something I’m allowed to return to.
Choosing to live takes conscious effort. And for once, I think I want that to be the point.
With love always,
Olivia Jean