Bye 2016

It seems people are eagerly running into this new year, stopping only momentarily to flip 2016 the bird. The long list of celebrity deaths, and the foul taste of an election year are things people are happy to leave behind.

But for me, I found myself cherishing every last bit of 2016. Soaking up the seconds greedily, wishing there were more to be had. See, unlike the majority of the people I talk to, this year was the best year of my life.

I entered 2016 with a freshly shaven head, and not one friend in my new home, the one and only mistake on the lake, Cleveland, Ohio. 

This past year was simultaneously the most fun, and most challenging year of my life, which incidentally, are the perfect ingredients for a fabulous life. 

It all started a year ago when I met an adorable, blonde, drunk girl as I feared for my life during a fire alarm the night after a double homicide in my apartment building, as often it does...

Okay, okay, I suppose I should back up and tell the whole story. Between October, when we first moved here, and January, we tried countless running groups, bible studies, and Meetups. Although we met lots of great, very interesting people (especially all the vegans, never forget the vegans) none gained the title "friend". 

We were not thwarted by our limited success, instead we spent those months exploring and falling in love with the city, and playing wallball in our practically empty apartment. In fact, our whole, refurbished warehouse apartment building was practically empty. We frequently wandered the halls attempting every doorknob until we'd stumble upon the adrenaline rush of finding one unlocked. One day, upon opening another apartment door, we were faced with a cast iron, circular staircase leading up the roof, jackpot! 

On our secret rooftop the world was ours. Kevin would sit on the ledge, and I'd stand and give him a heart attack, and we'd drink beer and look over the city that we promised we'd master. We found furniture piled in the corner (in my defense I thought it was abandoned, I swear, on my honor). We carried a piece, a small table, down to our empty apartment because...well, it was EMPTY! So a few weeks later when we heard that there had been a double homicide in our apartment building and they would be giving the police all of their video footage, I didn't have time to be contemplating my safety, I was too afraid that I would be going to jail for stealing that damn table from the rooftop that I wasn't suppose to be on in the first place. 

That is until the following night at 3 a.m. when I was jolted awake to a man's voice in my apartment, "WARNING, WARNING, THERE IS AN EMERGENCY..." (p.s. creepiest fire alarm ever!) In a half awake, dazed, state-of-mind, I suddenly became very aware that death was worse than jail and begged Kevin to stay in bed. See, given the choice between the opponents that are fire and bullets, I liked my chances against fire. He dragged me down the creepy, cement stairwell, and I hugged the wall as we waited in the hallway...waiting for the alarm to stop, waiting for death. >Enter drunk blonde girl<

I was still shaking when the sweetest bundle of joy packaged as a bubbly, blonde girl, ran up and smothered my dog with love. "Wanna be friends?" I don't remember exactly what she said to me, but I'm pretty sure it was exactly that. We exchanged numbers and a couple of days later she invited me to come along on her tinder date (I swear to you all of this is true, nothing is made up, or even embellished). I put all of my premonitions of this being a strange request aside, I mean hell! Was it strange? I had never been on tinder. Maybe everyone brings strangers? I mean, when you're meeting a stranger/possible rapist for the first time, maybe everyone should bring another stranger along #safetyinnumbers.

On the date I explained my birthday was coming up, she, my brand new stranger friend, offered to throw me a birthday party. *Correction, she offered to throw "Rie" a birthday party, my bald Cleveland alter ego. This is really where my year began...

As far as the murder and the apartment situation, our apartment company recruited their "best PR team" to the job and held a meeting reassuring us that we were safe and should continue to pay way too much to live in a shitty, empty, warehouse. I sat in the meeting quietly as a girl in the back with long black hair and a red coat unrolled her long list of "concerns" and grilled the officer in charge of the case. She asked questions I never dreamed of asking; questions like, "How can you confirm that I'm not going to fucking die if I continue to live here." You know, real oddball, unreasonable requests. 

I stayed quiet until they made a remark that somehow this was probably, most definitely, partially our fault because someone had let the killers in to our key fob-locked doors. "Know your neighbors," they demanded, "don't let strangers in." This is when I could take it no more. "Excuse me," I piped up, "how shall we ever get to know our neighbors without organized, community events?" >Enter wine and cheese party<

Upon rolling into the party in the apartment's elounge, excited to meet some of my, possibly murdering, neighbors, I saw that practically no one was there. Whether this was because (a) no one lived there, (b) they had all been killed, or (c) because they were all too cool to come, I'll never know. I ate way too much free food and talked with practically the only other person there, an accountant, snore. ; ). **I'm married to one**. At the same time Kevin was approached by a guy who opened with, "wanna be friends?" and then introduced us to two of his gorgeous blond engineering coworkers, one of which started us a group chat, and thus, Team Fire Alarm was born. 

The rest is history, some of my favorite history I have ever lived and will never forget. 

Although you may think I am the hero of this story by gallantly demanding apartment events, mmhmm it was valiant, you would be wrong... The hero is the blonde girl who asked for my number AND threw me a fucking birthday party. The hero is the girl with long black hair who grilled the officer and made me dinner and drank wine with me on the rooftop as we poured out our souls. The hero is the accountant who was brave enough to sell her house, move to the city, and go to the apartment event by herself and dragged me to day time events, and made me feel less alone in my ice-cream addiction! The hero is the man who introduced himself to my husband and introduced us to his friends, and welcomed us into his home time and time again for wine, and games. The hero is the couple who agreed to watch a stranger's dog on last minutes notice and then came through for us time and time again, and ran our first half marathon with us, untrained! (and kicked our ass in time). The hero is every person that came and left our group chat and all the jokes they added. But the real hero is my husband, who when I said I wanted to move to fucking Cleveland, Ohio, simply looked at me and asked, "When do we leave?"