Year's End, Berlin's End, Begin Again

Yes, all right, I'm feeling more than a little nostalgic lately.

The thing about timing things such that the year is ending just at the same time that you're uprooting your entire life is that it makes everything feel really rather cataclysmic!

I was in the supermarket today (some of the employees were wearing party hats – aw!) and even the sight of the rows of jam-filled doughnuts in the bakery (it's a new year's tradition in this part of Germany, with one unlucky person biting into the one in each batch that's filled with mustard, a practice that reminds me of the lucky toy or coin hidden in a king cake on Twelfth Night or Mardi Gras...except, you know, less pleasant, 'cause it's mustard) made me sigh with fondness for dear, strange, often exasperating, yet entirely familiar Germany.

In an odd way, I hope that leaving will make me love Berlin even more, and that coming back to visit will allow me to just 100% enjoy this place, rather than trying to enjoy the cool stuff about it while also being bogged down in the frustrations of daily life. Who can say (since I never can seem to plan my life more than a couple months ahead), but my idea is definitely that Berlin will continue to be part of my life, a place that I can always visit back to and that will always feel at least in some way like home.

And Iceland. I want Iceland to continue being part of my life, too. (In my head, I've been working on a goofy metaphor wherein the US is my family and always will be, Germany is my friend and housemate of so many years that we know all each other's quirks, but Iceland is my (not-so) secret crush, the one that gives me butterflies in my stomach even just to say its name.)

Oh, by the way, here's how empty the apartment looked in the end – yesterday, when I handed over the keys. Looking very pretty and tidy and clean, if I do say so myself! (Germany, possibly the only country where you have to invest more time and money and energy in an apartment when you move out than when you move in.)

Feeling nostalgic, I also took a bunch of pictures of the rest of the building, and some silly self-portraits in the cool mirrors in the entryway – it's one of these gorgeous turn-of-the-last-century, art-deco-y classic Berlin apartment buildings.

Happy new year, everyone! What a year it's been. May the next one be just as exciting, but with way fewer of the terrible things going on in the wider world. Once again, I'm going to close out the year by quoting Josh Ritter, because I really think he's got the right life attitude in so very much of what he does:

I'm inside with my friends
We build fires and pretend
That the night could just bend on forever
While outside in the frost
Are the wolves and the lost
And we sing to the dogs or whoever
Singing don't let me into this year with an empty heart
With an empty heart
Don't let me into this year with an empty heart