"Raise Your Glass"

"Welcome be ye that are here,

Welcome all, and make good cheer,

Welcome all, another year."

- New Year's Toast, Author Unknown (but more than likely drunk), 1949

The last day of the year... Has it really been 365 days already?
I find it so hard to believe considering the first 6 months dragged like nobody's business and the last 6 months went by too quickly for me to enjoy. lol
But I suppose it's official. My stepdad's family is here and there is, as expected, an overabundance of food. We had a cookout for lunch, are expecting menudo for dinner and will be having turkey (God help my poor stomach) tomorrow.
The booze is flowing and fireworks are causing a fire hazard in my backyard (and I being the weirdo college student who doesn't drink or believe in arson, am staying inside behind a laptop curled up with my chihuahua. Sergio and Mark are coming tomorrow and that's been the highlight of my entire Winter Break so hopefully I can start the year off right!
2011... Can't believe it's here. Each New Year's has been different from the last. When I welcomed in 2008, I was a Sophomore in High School, I was in the preliminary stages of blogging as I wrote in my now defunct "Pandora's Shoebox" blog. I welcomed in the New Year watching reruns in Christmas pajamas while my parents were at a neighbor's party.
 In 2009, I was with David's family, where the running joke was his brother "drinking his sorrows away" while we watched a movie and I became integrated into the family on the first holiday I spent with a family other than my own. I dressed nicely, resisted the champagne and saw a hell of a lot of fireworks.
Last year, it was a quiet New Year's, seeing as my stepsiblings were with their mom and my stepdad was working so my mom, brother and I watched Telemundo ring in the New Year on TV and we went outside to watch other people light up the night sky. 2009 was a particularly difficult year for me so I was more than glad to put it all behind me that New Year's Eve.
Which brings me to now. I can honestly say 2010 was eventful. It had it's uplifting moments but mostly, 2010 represents freedom to me. Freedom from heartache, society's limits, personal boundaries, normalcy, the freedom to see who I am.
To my fellow citizens of the world, I salute you. Cheers to the potential to a wonderful year. :)