Pack our bags

Happy new year's baby/we could probably fix it if we clean it up all day/or we could simply pack our bags/and catch a plane to Barcelona 'cause this city's a drag

- quoting our national anthem by the Counting Crows here because it works so exceptionally well for today.

I managed not to cry this year!

Maybe my pre-emptive midlife crisis is finally over and I am getting used to the fact that time goes by entirely beyond my control. It could have something to do with the incredibly stylish James Bond party we attended, dressed up as James, Moneypenny and Onomapatov (or whatever her name is). Maybe it was a good idea to crash a party full of unknown individuals rather than being surrounded by all kinds of beloved family members, of whom I can never bear the thought for one second that they could possibly grow a year older.

Maybe things are different, now I know that there will always be Barcelona.

In the movie 'Manhattan', Woody Allen lamentates we will always have Paris, while saying goodbye to his girlfriend; meaning someting like - 'you are moving to a different continent but we can always meet there, we will always have that middle ground in that symbolically charged city'.

Barcelona seems to symbolize just the opposite to me, - I am in the country I know best; picking up the latest expressions; celebrating December the way it is supposed to be since the olden days; eating the food I grew up with; re-adjusting to a social code that I once knew. I am (re-)learning the rules of a place where I already belong essentially. It's freaking me out, it's reminding me of how I disliked living in the eastern part of the country when my family first moved here after I was eight. But things are different. I have a bank account now, and access to EasyJet.

And Barca is just around the corner.