Annapocalypse

2011 RET·RO·SPEC·TIVE

I’ve sat down several times to write my wrap-up of this year, as I did last year and in 2009.  I wasn’t exactly sure where to begin, so I read back through my two previous posts.  In 2009, I remarked that 2008 was one of the worst years of my life because I was unemployed for close to seven months.  Although I was gainfully employed for all of this year, thankfully, I would venture to say that 2011 was one of the hardest years of my life and I’m looking forward to it ending.

I started the year with Rob, a nice dinner at Longman & Eagle, and then back to our apartment to ring in 2011 together with champagne and cheesy self-timer photos.  Although we look happy in all the photos from that night, that first week after the holidays was the start of conversations and mounting frustrations that would eventually lead to our break-up in June, after almost four years of dating.  It’s hard to look back on 2011 and not see the entire year colored by our break-up.  I avoided writing about it on tumblr and elsewhere on the internet, because if I wrote about it, that made it so much more real.  And I wasn’t ready for that reality.  Even writing this paragraph is getting to me right now.  Maybe it’s the Belle & Sebastian I’m listening to though.  While I didn’t write on the internet about my feelings, I wrote pages and pages of word documents about everything.  To quote myself from back in July: “You tell your best friend this is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to go through.  And you feel like it’s overly dramatic, but you know it’s the truth.” After breaking up in June, we continued to ride out our apartment lease until September, when we moved into separate apartments: him to Roscoe Village and me remaining in Logan Square, but in a studio instead of a two-bedroom.  When people say that breaking up is hard, I never fully understood what that meant until this year.  It’s not hard, it’s gut-wrenching.  After almost four years, it’s not just about a relationship ending, it’s about losing your best friend.  It shows you the worst version of yourself and you’re not sure how to make it stop.  Maybe it doesn’t stop until you move on for good.  Or until you fall in love again.  I’m definitely nowhere close to figuring it out.  I wish I had a positive note to conclude this paragraph on, but I don’t think I’ve gotten to that point quite yet.  I’m still taking it a day or a week at a time.  And hopefully, as time progresses and my last semester of grad school/student teaching starts in less than two weeks, I won’t have to take it a day or a week at a time.  I can just feel like myself again.  

While I cannot wait for this year to end, it would be wrong if I didn’t reflect upon the good things that did indeed happen this year.  Yes, there will be positivity in this entry!  I promise.  During breaks in my spring semester, I was lucky enough to visit my friends that unfortunately live all across the country.  My spring break was partially spent with Brittany visiting me in Chicago and then in Seattle, as Rob and I spent an extended weekend bro-ing down with Patrick and his awesome friends.  There was lots of awesome food, sight-seeing, and watching tons of UA March madness basketball.  Since I’m slightly crazy and like to pretend I have a disposable income, I went to New York several weeks after my Seattle trip to see LCD Soundsystem’s final show at Madison Square Garden and visit Meredith.  The show still blows my mind when I think about it.  While in NY, I also went to one of the first Yankee games of the season (my first time in the new stadium!).  In May, I surprised my other favorite person ever, Kari, in Pittsburgh for her “moving back in with her parents and saying goodbye to her freedom” party.  Another much-needed trip to bring me back to feeling sane again.  I was lucky enough to have my foodie BFF, Matt, visit me not once but TWICE to go to NEXT Restaurant for their Paris 1906 menu in June and their Thai menu in September.  Over the summer, I visited my sister Rachel and her husband, Gavin, in Los Angeles for Fourth of July weekend (becoming a bit of a tradition, two years in a row).  After a brief Tucson pit-stop in August, my last trip of 2011 (not including going back to Tucson for Thanksgiving and Christmas over the last month or so) was another epic time in New York in September for Kari’s 27th birthday.  Between Broadway, a great dinner at The Water Club, catching up with old friends, being able to spend the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in the same state where I watched it happen, and having my two worlds collide when Meredith and Kari FINALLY met, the trip was definitely one of the highlights of my year by far.

Another highlight was getting a chance to see several bands that I never imagined I would ever be able to see perform live. The Dismemberment Plan at The Metro in February and Braid also at The Metro in August both blew my mind to pieces and I can’t help but think back to those two shows whenever I listen to each band now.  Other notable shows from 2011: Arcade Fire at the UIC Pavilion in April, seeing Wild Flag twice at Wicker Park Fest and the Empty Bottle, Eleanor Friedberger on Halloween weekend at Subterranean, and being able to see Ryan Adams and Wilco (both for the first time and within several weeks of each other).

Although I pretty much stopped freelance writing in 2011 (being let go of at Spinner in January, quitting Chicagoist in April), I still made an attempt to work on my fiction writing when I had time.  I also picked up an opportunity writing a brunch column for Serious Eats’ new Chicago site this past fall as well.  I’m guessing it will be basically impossible to do any serious writing while I’m student teaching this year, but hopefully in the second half of 2012, I can get back into it.

Yeah…student teaching.  I got my placement ten days ago and I will be teaching sophomores and juniors at a CPS high school on the NW side of the city.  I’m beyond thrilled about where I got placed and although I’m incredibly nervous about the experience, it’s a good kind of nervous, not a bad kind.  I’m meeting my cooperating teacher in person next week and then the semester/student teaching starts on January 9th.  And then, well, graduation the first week of May.  And then I have a Master’s degree.  Holyshit.  One step at a time though.

I don’t want to say that 2012 is going to be a good year, but I do know that it has to be better than 2011.  It’s just not possible for things to get worse.  Famous last words, right?  I’m not letting it happen like that though.  2012 is a year for me.  My student teaching experience, my soon-to-be Master’s degree, my career, my friends + family, my life.  It’s mine and I’m ready for it.