Mood: Intact
Drinking: Sweet tea
Another year. Another new year’s eve. Another one of these.
I just can’t be bothered to get all aflutter about this one. Actually, I can hardly ever be bothered when it comes to this holiday on the heels of Christmas. It’s just so anticlimactic.
You’ve got all the bustle and hubbub of Christmas. The giving and getting of presents. The finding of trees. The unpacking of glass baubles. The baking of cookies and reunions of relatives and cross-country flights jam packed with winter coats and unfamiliar boots and squalling, squealing children.
And then suddenly it’s all over and you’re back at home and you toss the tree (which is now a veritable tinderbox) to the curb and all the baubles go back in their boxes and then you’re supposed to have one last hurrah with the bubbly and the countdown and the funny little hats and no one ever asks if Dick Clark is some kind of well-preserved zombie/vampire type creature.
I just can’t muster any excitement for it.
Truth be told, I always get a bit depressed this time of year. This end of a year. Everyone gets all hopeful with resolution and big plans for the new four-digit number but really, who are they kidding. They won’t have lost any weight or cleaned out the attic or stopped being so crabby with coworkers when the new year ends again. It’s just how we are. Who we are.
Don’t count me among the hopeless, though. I know this whole glittering new year is an important ritual, a bright shiny thing, for many. I get it. It’s just that I’d rather find my hope in the everyday kind of day, instead of load all my portent on this one winter night, on this one chime of clock, on this one midnight dream. There are so many others coming…
Oh, I’ve got plans. I’ve got resolutions. I’ve even squirreled a few predictions away. But I’ve had them all for quite awhile. And I’m not giving them up anytime soon.
So let them go on with their music video countdown and year in review broadcasts and 2006 predictions. I’m going to sit here in my living room with my cup of tea as if it’s any other night and tomorrow is any other day. Because it is, really. It just is.
-Lo, who will review 2005 just by saying that at this time last year, cinepoems were just an idea. Now there are six. Pause for the warm glow of pride… Four. Three. Two. One.
LaDonnaWitmer 