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The
New Year
By
Matt Simione
Each new year brings with it a degree of expectation and hope, and a sense that anything – everything – is possible. This year, as the ball dropped in Times Square, I wondered how to best use my three bonus hours before 2007 reached the Bay Area. Normally, I avoid going out on New Years Eve. The crowds, the partying, the excessive consumption of alcohol – it all gives me pause. I decided to stay in and make a few calls back East. Just to check with family and friends on how the new year seemed to be shaping up so far. It never hurts to take advantage of others insight.
My brother wished me well. He’d spent a quiet evening at home with wife and family. What could be better? I wished him well in return and I hung up feeling a little behind the times – which I was. Two and a half hours behind the times to be exact.
What would I do to celebrate the coming new year? What would I do to commemorate the passing of one year and the beginning of another? It occurred to me that my lack of zeal for welcoming 2007 was due to the fact that I wasn’t ready for 2006 to end. It had been, for me, a good year. I didn’t want it to end. Really, I didn’t. Why trade in a perfectly good year, a year I was very comfortable with, for one that I knew absolutely nothing about; couldn’t know anything about? Expectations, and hopes, and possibilities could turn out to be disappointments, and crushed dreams, and utter failures. It was possible. The odds were 50/50. I didn’t know. Who could know?
I can depress myself quite well at times, even without the aid of alcohol. (Could that be considered a talent? A skill? A neurosis? Or, was it simply plain old stupidity?) Whatever, the bottle of bubbly would remain in the fridge, cork in tact.
My lack of enthusiasm for 2007’s arrival – and my pondering about it – brought on an all too familiar melancholy. The holidays can do that.
I stepped out on the balcony and watched the passersby scurrying to and fro. Some seemed in quite a hurry, others less so, and a few moved down the street so slowly that I couldn’t help but think they would arrive at their destination reluctantly, perhaps even regrettably.
The ring of the phone called me back inside. It was my daughter. I smiled as I usually did when she called. She has that effect on me.
“Just called to say Happy New Year. Figured the phone lines might be jammed up at midnight.” She tends to think ahead.
“Happy New Year to you too.”
“Ok. Gotta run. Talk to you tomorrow. Love you.”
“Ok. Bye. Love you too.”
2007 suddenly seemed more promising. Hmm. I never thought of myself as one prone to mood swings, but…
The phone rang again. It was my friend.
“I know. I’m so late. Sorry but… What a day!” She sounded a bit out of breath. “I should be there in about thirty minutes.”
“Be careful.”
I sat on the sofa and smiled. Ready or not, 2007 was coming. There was no stopping it. And with it was coming twelve months of uncertainty. Good, maybe bad; great, possibly horrendous. Still, it was coming, steadily advancing, unavoidable.
Perhaps, just perhaps, I’m growing too old to appreciate fresh starts, new beginnings. Perhaps uncertainty was becoming more frightening and less exciting than it was when I was younger. There’s something to be said about predictability. It provides a certain sense of safety in what is certainly an increasingly unsafe world. I’m a Barney Rubble in a George Jetson world. It’s a fact. I admit it. Actually, I proclaim it, and proudly. The world needs its fossils, it really does, and I stand willing, able, and ready to serve in that capacity.
Skeptical, not naive; experienced not just ambitious; proven rather than promising. These are good things, no?
The clock struck twelve and the new year began (officially) in much the same way 2006 had just twelve months earlier.
“Well, Happy New Year.” I said to my friend.
“Right back at you.” she replied, yawning.
Could there be two more boring people in the City? Doubtful.
“Ready for bed?” she asked, yawning yet again.
I smiled.
“Good, ‘cause I’m beat.”
I frowned.
Can you ‘Bah-Humbug’ the New Year or is that exclusively a Christmas thing?
Copyright © 2007 Matt
Simione
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