I have always hated New Year’s Eve.
I hate the pressure to dress up and celebrate and whoop it up in fashion. I hate the drunks and hook ups and walks of shame and bleeding red lipstick smearing into laugh lines and bad pick up lines and torment to find someone to kiss. I hate the hangovers and regret and cliches that swirl around the beginning of a new year. I hate the anticlimactic nature of the night.
As we shepherd out a year and open our arms to the promise of a new one, we are all better off simply focusing innward for a change. So much of our lives, online and in our own internal swirls of insecurity, are spent eyeing what others are doing, accomplishing, tackling. The world is one big litmus test and each person we cross is a yardstick by which we measure ourselves, our worth. “Am I <insert adjective here> enough?” is the question that nags our psyches. Guilty as charged. It’s exhausting.
New Year’s Eve just perpetuates this nonsense for me, self imposed or otherwise is irrelevant.
I regard the new year as a time to reflect, not celebrate with wild abandon. What exactly are we celebrating? Time lost? Time well spent? Time passed? Or time that is yet to come? I just can’t quite reconcile it.
Instead I prefer to quietly bid adieu to a year of lessons learned, memories made, dreams dared, and lives lived. The mundane bits of our days weave together to make the tapestry that is life itself. The glory is in all that is normal and pure and underwhelming. I look back on my year and relish the moments of cuddly calm, pee-in-your-pants giggles, meals shared, tears wiped, paths walked. I am not necessarily moved by milestones alone. I prefer to turn the page to 2014 at the same pace I read the book of 2013. Each New Year’s Eve I look back with a sense of wonder and gratitude. Regret singes the dangly ends at times. I welcome the new year cloaked in a crazy quilt of hope, wistfulness, anticipation, and yes, a delicate taste of dread. I shall share a toast with my family and friends and simply wake up to a new day.
Happy New Year. No exclamation point required.
I am not a fan of New Year’s Eve either. I think having kids pushed the pressure off the night. We simply have a fun evening to celebrate another 365 days gone around the sun. I also look back at the year to see how I did with my goals, I refuse to make resolutions. What goals were made and what needs further work. As you know my main focus this year is on education and I thank you for launching me into that. You were a true inspiration for me in 2013 and I am sure it will continue in 2014 and beyond.