On the morning of Dec. 7, my friend Jenny texted me and our friend Laura: "Last full moon of the year! Astrologically speaking it's supposed to be fierce. I couldn't tell you why but dream big!"
I'd met Jenny only two months before, but it felt like we'd known each other for decades. She rekindled a childhood sense of play and adventure. "Hell yes," I replied. "I'd be down to do some witch-y stuff by the ocean tonight." Laura shared a GIF of a séance. I sent coordinates for a dirt road that I knew led to a secluded cove. With no real plan, we all agreed to meet there.
It felt like an appropriate journey to end 2022, the first year of my adult life that I'd spent intentionally single, focused on cultivating new and deeper friendships. I'd hoped to break toxic relationship patterns by abstaining from romantic entanglements, inspired partly by the essayist Melissa Febos, who wrote of a year of celibacy: "until that point — it was the best year of my life."
