When my brother was a high school delinquent, my parents decided that we would spend New Year’s Eve in Florida, in an effort to keep him from partying too hard. But eventually George graduated from college and couldn’t take time off work to be with us in Florida on New Year’s Eve. The evening quickly turned from commiserating with my big brother because we couldn’t be home with friends, to me being all alone. My parents didn’t understand that making it up to midnight was just half the fun of the evening. So, for the past 5 years, at 12:05, when everyone has gone to bed, I go down to the beach. We’re on an island, and from our beach, you can see all the way down one end to the mainland and beyond. All around the island and back on the mainland, people everywhere light off fireworks in celebration of the new year, leaving traces of brilliant light in the sky you can see from miles away. Most years, the fireworks go for 20 minutes or so, and then everyone retreats to their comfy beds and goes to sleep, ready to get to the beach tomorrow. But there was one year I’ll never forget. It was the New Year’s Eve we welcomed 2013.

As 2012 came and went, I was so excited and ready to begin anew. Especially because 2013 seemed so promising. I was going to graduate from high school, start college, get to play a ton of golf, go to senior prom, go exploring through Europe, and so much more! It was the start of a new chapter for me and I couldn’t wait. As usual, we were in Florida, and when midnight struck, my parents kissed, my Aunt and Uncle kissed, and I snuck down to the beach- towel, blanket and flashlight in hand.

I started thinking about all the good things in 2012 I was thankful for and didn’t want to forget, and then sort of said goodbye to another year. I thought about all my hopes and dreams for the coming year and imagined myself starting college and really truly becoming an adult (still working on the whole adult thing…). In that moment, a moment filled with emotion and excitement, a breeze picked up, carrying what must have been 100 lit paper lanterns across the ebony sky I was looking up at. It was like they were meant for me. Like every lantern held a wish and a dream- to show me everything that was in store for me in 2013.

This year, saying goodbye to 2016 was hard for me. There have been some incredible ups and downs over the past 365 days, ones that have helped define who I am as a person. Ones that have broken me. There were days I didn’t think I could get through, and there were days I couldn’t wait for. There are moments I would do anything to re-live, and moments I would do anything to forget. So while I couldn’t light and release 100 paper lanterns on my own, and I didn’t want to do just one, I thought of something else. On a semi-crinkled piece of highlighter-yellow legal pad paper, I wrote down everything (good, bad, ugly, awkward, horrific, laugh-inducing, tear-filled) about 2016. I wrote about the experiences I have had that I will never forget. I wrote and wrote until my hand almost fell off. On the other side of the paper, I wrote my New Year’s resolutions and what I was excited for in the coming year. I rolled it up really tightly, shoved it into an old wine bottle and corked it. At 12:30 or so, when the fireworks started to dissipate, and as people deserted the beach, I waded into the freezing Gulf (I couldn’t feel my feet after 3 seconds), and hurled the wine bottle as far as I possibly could into the abyss. It splashed as it hit the water, and eventually I couldn’t see it anymore.

I’ll never know where that old bottle of Kendall Jackson ended up, or if someone found it the next morning and read it or, hell, if it made it to some remote place far away from where I tossed it into the ocean. But maybe that’s part of what makes New Year’s Eve so special to me. Maybe not knowing where the bottle ended up, or what happened to it is more important than what was written on that piece of yellow legal pad paper.

So while I can’t say I was ringing in the new year with my friends at a party, I can say that my New Year’s Eve was just as memorable. It was a night of reflection. A night of family. A night of remembering who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. And I’m okay with that.