New Year’s Eve

I love New Year’s Eve. Some people think that the whole ball drop thing is corny and wasteful and expensive and just plain annoying. It certainly is all of those things, but I still look forward to it every year. I even got a little giddy sitting in the movie theater watching New Year’s Eve when the ball was dropping 10 minutes from the end. I will not be somewhere for New Year’s that doesn’t have a television. I say Happy New Year emphatically in chorus with everyone else. I measure time in terms of calendar year, and I do indeed see a new year as a clean slate of sorts. I write the correct year on my rent check starting January 1 and proceed to fail by February 1. I do not believe that whoever you’re with at midnight you’ll be with the whole year, but I do believe that how you feel at midnight is how your year will start off

This year, I am in Vermont with some of my favorite people. It’s cozy and warm and there’s lots of laughing. It’s bittersweet, because my forever image of New Years Eve at our family friends’ house having cocktails, seeing the giant dog, playing games that the men always thought they won, lots of laughing, and many cheers at midnight now has a hole in it and will never happen quite the same way again. But, where I am now is nice and wonderful, too, with just as much warmth and friendship and connectivity over a once-a-year night.

As it is every New Year’s, but more than ever this one, it is my wish that people remember to be kind to each other, and to make smart decisions for themselves. I hope that everyone continues the next year in good health and in working towards happiness if they don’t already feel that they are at that point. And of course, I hope that we all have a fun 2012, because having fun and laughing more often than not is really what it’s all about.

Here’s to a thoughtful reflection on the year just past, and to a great new year ahead.