This is New Year’s Eve.
Some 20 years ago, I asked God to help me to never spend New Year’s Eve alone again.
It was a strange prayer, because nothing like that had ever bothered me before. Up through that point, I didn’t really have friends, nor had I ever been part of a community. I had people I knew, and sometimes even spent time with, but I never considered them friends.
That time has long since past, and I’ve been part of many communities, and made and let go of many friends.
I find it fascinating that God answered my prayer, though, even when I tried specifically to avoid it.
Today is New Year’s Eve. I didn’t plan to be with anyone, and I had many reasons to not be with people, but everything converged such that I spent the bulk of the day in the company of people I enjoyed.
I had the option of going into town with them to celebrate the holiday, but I opted to separate and try to finish the trail faster; I wanted to fix my tooth sooner rather than later.
So. I took off running as they got in their car to drive off. And I made it pretty far.
But as the sunset, I came to a mountain overlook in rain and heavy fog, such that I couldn’t see 10 feet from me after the darkness came.
I set up camp.
No one is coming to this overlook given how awful the weather was.
Except, I was wrong.
Teenagers came.
I opted to stay in my bivy and let them get bored. They had firecrackers, which was obnoxious, but it also meant they would run out of reasons to be here.
They certainly saw me, but I suspect they were more concerned about the strange site of a person sleeping up here than anything else.
I wondered if I was going to have to engage, but I didn’t.
They left after 45 minutes.
At 3AM, another truck pulled up.
“Hey look, there’s a warrior up here” “Haaaaaaa”
Then silence. 2 minutes later, they drove off.
Not sure what that was about.
But.
Welcome to 2021.