After a nearly half-year hiatus, the famed A and H are back with a sequel to their smash-hit EPIPHANIES. Just in time for the holiday season, EPIPHANIES: Christmas Edition provides a taste of the monogrammed duo's classic life lessons--sprinkled wit...
I know this is technically supposed to be a Christmas-themed book, so a new year's chapter isn't exactly fitting, but you'll just have to deal with it. Because this is an epiphany worth sharing.
New Year's Eve has always been a monumental day of the year of H and I. It used to be the one day that I looked forward to all year--day by day, I was counting down the moments until New Year's was finally upon us.
Well, New Year's is officially upon us now. But am I even looking forward to it? I honestly can't tell. It just doesn't feel like it's actually going to happen.
This has been an ongoing struggle for me and it has become increasingly relevant within the past couple of years. After the never-ending lockdowns of 2020/2021 cancelled all of our holiday celebrations, I've been left with one thing and one thing only: trauma.
I still foggily remember that fated--or should I say cursed--New Year's Eve of 2020. As my family sat in solitude and silence watching the eerily quiet Times Square Ball drop, I still felt a glimmer of hope. I felt sure that next year, we'd be able to resume our celebrations.
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Soon enough, it was 2021. Guess what? Christmas was cancelled again. H and I officially lost all hope for absolutely anything and everything after that. But THEN... New Year's Eve came.
H was able to make it to my house for a few days, in which we saw Spider-man: No Way Home twice. That will forever be the best movie theatre experience ever.
Anyways, we saw it for the second time on New Year's Eve. We were gearing up to have a family friend over and were very excited. But then tragedy struck.
As we hopped into my father's car, he took no time in breaking the news to us: my mom was a close contact. The family friend was no longer coming over.
The hour that followed was a very rough one. I distinctly remember sitting on the couch, wallowing in silence, hearing my father say these words: "Maybe next year."
When he said that, I wanted to punch covid in the face just like this dog punches this man.
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However, in a shocking turn of events, something amazing happened:
That New Year's Eve ended up being the best one yet.
That's right. Even though it was completely different than how I'd always expected a perfect New Year's Eve to be, it was the best one.
I'm sure a lot of you dear readers have gone through an experience like this at least once before in your wonderful lives. How often do we find ourselves in seemingly unfortunate circumstances but then end up enjoying ourselves way more than expected? More often than we think.
The lesson here is that expectations ruin everything. More often than not, your expectations will not be met. But that's not always a bad thing. In fact, it's usually a very good thing.
Don't go through life expecting things to always be the same. Because they won't be. That's just how it is. Change is both natural and completely necessary. It may seem scary but it is so completely worth it.
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