Dearest twenty-sixteen,

I saw you across the room and my heart began to race.  I was arrested in the discovery of you and I must be honest, you have been escaping my grasp for far too long.

I have seen you in glimpses.  Here and there you have teased me.  A flirt at my expense and I know that to some degree I deserved this delay.  The chrysalids of my spirit was not yet ready for your obvious beauty.  I needed to walk the more complicated path, for life itself was teaching me the ways in which I needed to know I wanted and didn't want.

You may not know this yet, but, I believe we are meant for a partnership that will leave glitter in our wake.  Then again, the way you winked at me tonight when the clock turned 12:00am... maybe you know it too.

I want to dance with you like all the greatest of lovers do.  I want to listen to what you have to teach me like a student listens to their master, I want to run my fingers through your days like poet savers the lines in his poem.  I want to raise my voice and shout loud the words that we share.  

I am going to go all the way with you.  Like a secret love that can't be denied, I want to sit together our hands intwined and find the places in which no one else but us go.

Twenty-Sixteen, I have had other years, it's true.  You aren't the first, you are one of many.  Some good, and some not so bad.  Some were amazing.  Twenty-Twelve was a like holding hands with a drug addict.  I couldn't breathe, I could barely stand.  Twenty-Fourteen was like holding hands with a first-love.  Everything was blooming, evolving and becoming.  Twenty-Fifteen, well, she was like being tugged around by the hands of many.  Endless commentary on what I should or should not be feeling and doing, yet, only finding myself on those long walks and quiet.  Peace and quiet with just the baby girl and I.  No noise, no preconcieved ideas of how I would do my own life or look like, act like, be like... just the waves.  

So you see, twenty-sixteen, when I saw you across the room and we locked eyes, I was breathless.  There you were all glittery with a trail of gold behind you and I couldn't believe that it was me you were looking at.  I felt the heat of passion, hope and strength in my belly and I still feel it now as I recall the way you walked up to me.  Stopped inches from my lips.  You breathed on me, and I heard only two words in my head as I inhaled your scent.  "At Last".  

You smelled of blown out candles, salt ocean air, lavender fields and the end of bonfires.  I remember licking my lips in anticipation.  You waited until the very last second, until the last second of twenty-fifteen had left it's grip on me, and then you kissed me, full on the mouth.

I didn't think of anything in that moment.  No, I couldn't.  It was just this knowing that you were sent to me for a purpose and that somehow, our new connection will make ripples that only time will tell.

And thats when your kiss eneded.  I opened my eyes and you whispered.

"Hello,"

You never let me say anything in reply.  You simply winked one of your gorgeous eyes and went back to the wall I remember you leaning on.  But from that moment on, I stayed aware of you.  I am still aware of you.

You are here, and now I cannot ignore you.

"Hello."