Second Annual First Day of Skirt!

You guys, you guys! I've been looking forward to this day since last year!! It really might be my new favorite holiday ever and I hope it continues to be a part of my year forever basically. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, go look in February and read the original post.

Today I realized something else. I've also had this blog and have been posting on it at least once a month for over a year now. Samm and I were discussing these very sort of markers recently. How your nails growing out can help you keep track of how long you've been dating your boyfriend. How a scar on the knee can outlast the person with which you got it. How the mundane can somehow become meaningful.

It bugs me that I've been so scarce in the bloggin' world this year. I'm positive my writing suffers from it. But it's a good thing too. It means things are changing. That I'm busy-- less "too much in the head," more "out in the world". When first day of skirt was established, it was a declaration, an act of resistance. It was my way of saying, "That's it. I'm done being miserable. I'm done feeling inadequate and sorry for myself." This year, it's a celebration. It's a marker of a whole year in which I've taken an active role in staving off "ye old depression" as my sister put it recently. (I personally move that we all refer to it as such, although "the blue devils" ain't bad either). And I'm so incredibly proud.

That's the wonderful thing about the days we imbue with personal importance, of ritual. Which by the very definition implies sameness, repetition. From this fact they derive meaning. But they are also about change, hopefully growth. Ritual is as much about sameness as it is about the vital difference that makes this year not the same as the last, and if we're lucky, better.