Art and Anticrises

It’s December 31st (boy I really want to cry)

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To Gaby, Axel, Nicole, Max, Karina, Alexia, Dani, Valentina, Renata, Alan and Sergio for being my lifeline in 2023. For holding me at my worst, cheering on me at my best, and everything in between. And to everyone else who lent me an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on this year. You are so special to me.

December always makes me sentimental. 

My friends would say most things make me sentimental, and it’s true. But December is up there in the list of things that make me the most sentimental. December makes me cry and reset my phone and go through my camera roll and make lists that I’ll forget about in two weeks and look back at in two years. December makes me get sad about things that I’m no longer really that sad about, and it makes me feel grateful for things that I’ve held close to me all year long but that feel so much more important in retrospect. December makes me relive twelve months of experiences in thirty days, and it forces me to take inventory of everything and everyone that I’ve lost, gained, and learned over the course of three hundred and sixty five days. I’m always a pain in the ass in December. But I love December.

2023 was a difficult year. For many reasons, in many different ways. Dozens of sleepless nights because I had no time for sleep, then dozens of sleepless nights because I physically couldn’t stay asleep. A Spotify playlist called “gabs and debs emotional instability.” Tears in the subway, in my room, in the library, and in way too many taxi cabs. Going to the ballet, like all the time, because the graceful steps perfectly aligned to symphonic notes played by the orchestra held me and my overflowing feelings together like nothing else did. 

Change as the only constant. The unexpected as the norm. Resilience as my forced but reliable company.

I’m being a little melodramatic. Nothing actually serious happened in terms of death, illness or concerning mental health struggles of me and my loved ones, and that is something that I am extremely grateful for. In fact, looking back, everything worked out in better ways than I had imagined–just not in the way I had imagined. I got a job I love so much it makes me want to cry of joy, I have the most loving support system that I could have asked for, and I managed to stay in the city that I love without having to compromise much. But there was also loss and pain along the way, and many many things that shook me and made me sob in the realms of jobs, love, friendship, school, self-concept, and moving. Lots of moving. Moving on, moving forward, moving apartments (four times in a year), moving from student life to post-grad reality. Things that at 22 feel like the end of the world (or the start of a new one), even if it certainly is not. Things that stirred up my heart (and cortisol levels), for good or for bad, and that made 2023 a wild ride that, although I cherish, I can’t say that I enjoyed.

I’ve always spent New Year’s with my family, never with friends. It’s a tradition. My brother always has one single resolution, I always have twenty five and a detailed explanation for each one, and my mom somehow finds a reason to cry good tears at the dinner table. My sister never drinks, and my dad makes a prediction for the year to come. I spend all New Year’s Eve day thinking and thinking and thinking, on the year past and what I want for the year to come. Today is no exception, so here I am. And as I wrap up my sappy reflection on the trainwreck that 2023 was, I think of The Met. I think of the Met not because I was there a lot of times this year, but precisely because I wasn’t.

Ever since moving to New York, The Met has been a place I visit frequently, and over time it has become my favorite place in this city whose winters are as cold and harsh as my young adulthood here has been at times. Most years I’ve leaned towards visiting once a month or so; last year, because I used to work there, I was there without fault three times a week. I walked up The Met steps so many times that, in 2023, I took a break from being at the museum so often. I was there only five times this year, but it’s funny how magic somehow always happens at The Met. Going through the archive of my camera roll, my notes app, and my journal entries, the halls of the museum saw me at different milestone points of this year, and the dates I was there happened to be very aligned with situations going on in my life.

So here it is. My 2023 in Met visits that I remember more vividly than most other museum trips. 

February 11th, July 4th, July 8th, October 28th, December 22nd

(Text forthcoming!!!)

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In the words of Ms. Taylor Swift (who was as instrumental as all my art fixes were in getting me through the chaos that 2023 was),  I wanna be defined by the things that I love. Not the things I hate, not the things that I’m afraid of. Not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.

I’ve never seriously thought about getting a tattoo. But if I was brave enough, I would tattoo that without thinking about it twice. Because I do, I really do want to be defined by the things that I love. You are what you love.

Happy new year.

Yours truly y con mucho amor,

Debbie