Why do we celebrate the new year exactly, anyway? Is it a celebration of surviving another year without blowing ourselves up? Without crying ourselves to death, getting ditched by all our friends, overdosing, losing our sanity, getting into a serious car accident? Is it about the hope that in the coming year, we won't lose any limbs, or that perhaps we might finally fall head over heels, madly in love? Is it about the faith we hope doesn't get lost in the complicated mess that life becomes when things get rough? Is it the hope that because it's a new year, we'll at last have the willpower to lose those unnecessary pounds? Is it every single hope and dream of every single human being?
I think it's all of these things, not to mention about a thousand more.
To be honest I really thought the New Year must be another super narcissistic holiday, celebrated on behalf of the human race, congratulating us on not bringing forth a premature apocalypse but hey, that's me being a cynical bitch. I think writing this has made me realize that unlike birthdays, which serve no real purpose, and unlike President's Day, which nobody actually genuinely cares about anyway, the New Year is symbolic of the entire world coming together with little dreams for each smiling face and each pair of glazed, drunken eyes at midnight. It's about the resolutions that we probably won't keep. But it's also about the promises we hold our wills to. It's about remembering that there's somebody there besides you. It's about getting drunk off your ass and hitting on every Canadian guy around. It's about your unforgettable student trips. It's about the role you never thought you'd get, the lesson you never would've guessed you'd learn, every boy you end up kissing even though you promised yourself you wouldn't, it's about every drink you always told yourself you'd stay away from, every best friend you lost, every value that changed and every belief that stayed the same, every tear that fell and every laugh shared. It's about everything that did and didn't happen. It's about the friends you never could have imagined that you'd make. The friends you didn't know you'd keep. The people who suddenly mean the most. It's about everything that changed and everything that stayed the same. It's about taking what you learned and bringing it into 2009.
And it's also about a clean slate, a second chance. Or, a third or fourth if two's not your lucky number. It's about every little thing you tell yourself on New Year's Eve you'll change, or fix. It's about the person you promise yourself you'll become, and the person you actually end up being.
"It's one year closer to your death," to the utter pessimists, but it doesn't mean that to me. It's one year passed, a new one beginning.
It's making all of the mistakes you never planned on, and making all the right turns you'd hoped you'd make.
It's the hope that on this new year, things will turn out for the very best. And by the eve of the next, it's the hope that we didn't screw ourselves over completely that year. It's the hope we learned something. Some of that hope's bound to be recycled from the year before, because nothing's perfect. Some of those hopes are bound to be new. Where they might take us is a different story. But let's not look that far into the future, because there's a year in the making---in the now--- and we need to take that in.
"Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go."-Brooks Atkinson
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