It feels like we're going in circles

I think a lot about the orbiting of planets; it's a nice representation of time. Whereas a clock can be unplugged, a watch can run out of batteries, a tree can burn down and a heart can stop beating, the planets twirl, weave and dance with one another interminably.

This year we went once round the sun. That, and the Earth did 365 pirouettes. It's beautiful, yet frighteningly inexorable. As 2010 comes to a close, I find myself overwhelmed trying to integrate everything. I could really use a moment without sound to hear my thoughts and a moment without motion to catch my breath, but the globe keeps spinning ignorant to my requests. This year has been pretty important for me, so much so that for the first time in my life I feel like I need to, much like my friend Loaf does for everything, rehash the milestones.

I took the hardest test of my life and survived.

I built my first bike from spokes to saddle.

I graduated from college as a neurobiologist (and a minor league scholar of German language and culture).

I organized a directed a conference to educate and inspire high schoolers about pursuing a career in health care.

I was told on numerous occasions, at said conference, that I was Puerto Rican.

I willingly slept in a car three nights in a row.

I learned how to be single - and that being single can be really complicated.

I went on my first business trip.

I drank a whole beer (alcohol free).

I moved to Europe with little more than a backpack, a bike and a promise of a job.

I became an Emergency Medical Technician.

I rode 400 miles in four days down the sunny California coast with two of my closest friends.

I successfully completed the Cinnamon Challenge. Twice.

There is no doubt that some achievements on this list are more momentous than others - graduating from college is without question of more life-importance than being called Puerto Rican by a 17 year old Puerto Rican girl. But in those pensive moments in which I get lost in my thoughts and try to sort and organize them to achieve some order and sense, these are the things that come to mind. It is in these moments that I try and dig my heels into the Earth in the silly hope that my resistance will make it spin just a little bit slower and give must that fraction of a second longer to understand everything that goes through my head.

In the end, I have to simply own up to the fact that the Earth spins, circles the sun and is just one of a great number of stones that are accelerating away from one another. I suppose that's the beauty of it all, that within the elegant choreography of the universe, we live, love, laugh and thrive. So, let the dance go on, let us keep going in circles and let our next go around the sun be even better than that last magnificent lap that was 2010.