Mass quarantine aside, New Year’s was never high on my list of favorite holidays. In fact, I’d place it dead last. I hate how the weeks and days leading up to the end of the year feel like forced reflection. The best songs of the year, the best movies, the best books, all the best bests and the worst worsts. But I don’t want to look back on this year, or any year, really. To me, the past is just a string of regrets, while the future at least has potential. The future is exciting. The future has yet to disappoint. Parisa finds the unknown scary, but I find it exhilarating.

Maybe that’s why I always go to bed before midnight on December 31, so I can wake up early on the first day of the year, stand on the roof of our apartment building, and watch the sunrise. At dawn, I think about the rest of my life and scribble down my resolutions for the next twelve months. It’s always the same old shit: do more art, be nicer to my parents, branch out at school, exercise, get better grades, don’t dwell on what’s missing. I prefer the ritual of putting pen to paper instead of typing up my resolutions on the Notes app in my phone. I always fold up the piece of paper, keep it in my wallet, and take it out every few weeks so I can be reminded that I need to work harder to hold up my end of the bargain. But on the first day of this year, I’m trying something different. Instead of resolutions, I’m choosing a word to focus on for the next three hundred and sixty-five days. Initially, I had settled on “acceptance,” but that felt too defeatist. So then I asked myself what word Parisa would come up with, and that’s how I landed on “gratitude.”

I’m going to make it a point to search for signs that life isn’t totally unbearable or pointless. Even if it goes against my nature, I’m going to hunt for things I can appreciate. Today, while we hock vegan burgers in Vasona Park, I’m grateful for cool breezes. I try to savor the way the wind feels on my skin and commit it to memory. I’m lucky that I live someplace where I can enjoy the outdoors and still feel hot in a sweatshirt, in winter no less. I can stand on a hill in Los Gatos and still see people communing with nature. Yes, most of them are wearing masks and gloves, and most of them have their blankets placed at least six feet away from one another—the CDC’s recommended distance to keep other people’s germs at bay—but they are still here.