Here's a thought, 2017.

I am running out of words, and I’ve not much time.

The little I have - I will pen down in electronic ink running on paper, to remember, or maybe forget - that I have had just the best year yet.

Traveling to New York, Japan, and most everywhere else. Studying in Oxford and regaining a confidence I had once lost to an overpowering industry that spoils you rotten, and then turns you into gold. Falling in love seven times over, harder and harder, and still wanting more - with whoever is to blame, he's always been the same. Relinquishing myself. Redeeming myself. Reinventing myself. But not just for myself.

2016 was a year of hardships and endeavours - it was a year when dreams were yielded in ambition, perseverance, and hard work, to become reality. It has sought after, and found with an invigorating tag of invite, most everything I loved and long for. It has catapulted me into the clouds whilst, without a shadow of a doubt, tying my feet firmly to the unforgiving ground.

I see the celebration in its depart, with bitterness in a lot of people’s hearts. But hear me out - death comes without any hesitation to whomever he pleases, whenever, however. Wars are constantly fought, needing no validation. Famine is inevitable as long as there is greed. Pain will come, and sometimes it engulfs us and turns into our defeat.

There is absolutely nothing, and everything wrong. There are things that offer no explanation, but hasn’t it always been like that? When did we ever gain the gall to demand life for clarification? When was it ever simple? Never - or at least, not in recent memory. But that’s okay. Pain is often held into light with a gush of mixed ridicule, grudge, and an eerie sense of accusation for being unnecessary, when really, it should be given credit for all that we know about defiance.

So become defiant. This is not about clean slates. This is not about untarnished new days to come that offer ‘more’ than what have been before. It will be the same, dragging days that comprise nothing but ticking hours, faithless junctures and the only constant - you. So become defiant. Take a sad song and make it better. Or render a new one just as bad and learn the lesson twice, until it’s been made better. What I hate about New Year’s is how it’s actually April-fooling us into thinking that a strike in the clock marks an end and a beginning. It does not, not necessarily. Not unless you want it. And bad. And with a plan, and then, an execution.

I am running, running with scissors. 

Running out of words but overflowing in love, joy, and gratitude, for the year that was, and the year that will be. 

Running until I lose my breath to grow in defiance.

Running until I can jump, leap, fly, sprint - some more.

Running until I have outrun myself.

Running, as you should, too.

Happy New Year. Fill it with love, if not anything else.