An end and a beginning: reflections on 2008

Je commence avec une fin.

2008 is drawing to a close, as all years tend to do. Before consigning this year to memory, I go back to before its inception. I read and reread the first entry in the diary I started on 31 December 2007 and reflect.

I open this book with an end and a beginning.

In less than half a day, 2007 will end and 2008 will begin. The implications of this end and this beginning, even discounting the numerous errors of "2007" I will make in my writing, will be momentous. 2008 will be a year to remember; this I can confidently say even before it has begun. 2008 will be the year of my majority. 2008 will be the year when I graduate from high school and enter college. 2008 will be the year when I leave my parents. With a bit of luck (okay, maybe more than a bit), 2008 will be the year in which I get my driver's licence. 2008 will be the year in which I first visit my adopted European motherland. The Class of 2008. The 2008 Olympics in Beijing. 2008, 2008, 2008. Novelty, beginnings, change.

359 days later, it appears that I was right on all these counts. (Apparently, I didn't have enough luck to get that licence.) But this result is to be expected. After all, that passage was a dramatic and perhaps even artful bit of writing, but hardly an extraordinary prophecy. Yes, I turned 18 (was time supposed to stop?). Yes, I went to college (was I really going to flunk 12th grade?). Yes, the Olympic Games happened (perhaps the opening ceremony boycotts would have caused Beijing to capitulate?). 2008 was momentous in all of these ways, but hardly unexpectedly.

Which leads me to ask myself, what happened that I didn't predict?

I didn't predict that an earthquake would devastate Sichuan. I didn't predict that I'd end up at UVA. I didn't predict that CHEM 181 would change my life.

I certainly didn't predict that I would have a miserable year.

Because when I average out the elation of the past month with the rest of the year, the truth stands that 2008 was not a good year. I spent a large fraction of it—about one month—in tears. For almost 90% of the year, I passionately worked towards something that yielded no fruit. By the time I recognised that I was living a lie, it was the 327th day.

On 31 December 2007, I also made predictions about what would remain the same in my life. One of these predictions was that I would be living this lie forever (at the time, of course, I did not know, or would not admit, that it was a lie).

Thank goodness I dumped Perscheux d'Herbinville for Évariste Galois.

Some of my other predictions of this sort turned out to be more accurate:

Yet as certain as I am that so much will change, I am just as certain that so much will stay the same.... My connections with my best friends, Alex and Kaamila, will remain strong. Whatever new obsession I may pick up, LotR, earthquakes, weather, haematology, [and] French will always occupy a special place in my heart. And though I might not remain Estelle Vera Romana Ingrid Raleigh de Laurent, my Trans-European Chinese identity, my extroverted introversion, my eager reluctance, my befuddled brilliance, that bag of contradictions, will last a lifetime.

Indeed, I am no longer Estelle Vera Romana Ingrid Raleigh de Laurent. But I do believe that I am finally true to myself. I am no longer the self-sacrificial saviour of someone beyond salvation. I am no longer involved in an unequal exchange that involves trading freedom for disappointment. I am simply an 18-year-old étudiante with an affinity for light, a taste for liberty, a fondness for learning, and a passion for life. And I happen to be in love. (See? The best things in life do start with L!)

So I think that for 2009, I'll skip the empty self-fulfilling predictions, no matter how momentous they may be. I'll skip the precise resolutions too, and just say this line from my favourite Faudel song:

Je veux vivre sans jamais me trahir

... and let every season recolour my passions. I am ready for a new dawn. Let 2009 be... happy.