I am really not sure whether resolutions are for writing New Year's Eve or New Years Day, though perhaps it doesn't matter. Later, I will put on my sparkly blue velvet snowflake dress, the one I bought two years ago, but have yet to wear to the parties I always turn down going to (because even at their best winters are hard.) Later, I will ring in midnight playing a new drinking card game with my sweetie, though for sure it would be much more fun in a group of people and one day hopefully soon it will be. Before he comes over, I will make some dinner and watch something fun. Maybe take a long bath and organize my cardigan collection after tackling the top half of the built in earlier today.
These are usually the way my pre-midnight NYE rituals go if I am in the city. (even before I always seemed to be dating men with jobs like bartenders and karaoke hosts who were stuck working til the wee hours) I've always said I would much rather be cozy at home than out at parties and crowded bars with a whole lot of amateurs, but this year feels different. Like the lack of festivities isn't by introvert choice and more like something is being stolen, much as the whole year was. Suddenly I am pausing, mouse hovering over the gold shiny party dress that I would love to wear to some crowded party where the drinks are endless and the music way too loud to have a conversation. It would be too cold, slick with ice, climbing in an out of cabs and ubers. I would be mostly awkward all night, then much less awkward, but a little too drunk. Then just sort of sleepy. I would hate it and long for home. Confirm uncategorically I should have stayed in. But when it isn't an option--the sparkle and champagne-- I miss it. It makes no sense. It makes all the sense in the world.
Yesterday, when I was writing my recap of the year, I scrolled back through other years just for fun and realize that while the bones of the year are here--commuting, work, my weekends at home--there is a lot less texture--outings, movies, short trips. This is why, I suspect the entire year feels like one really long day in which nothing all that exciting happened and in which we were just short of anxious all the time. March became May became July. I celebrated a birthday in April and I suppose got another year older, but it doesn't feel like it counts,.
When I was a teenager, my parents would sometimes host game nights and card games for various family on my mom's side on NYE. On the eve of the millennium, when I had moved back in while working at the elementary school, we made a time capsule of all-things-2000. About a decade later, at Christmas, we opened it, which I'm pretty sure is too short for a capsule, so it lost some impact, but it's strange to think we are now not one, but two decades away from the beginning of the century. I somehow blinked and this time passed, and that was with a lot happening over the years. I can't imagine what a decade of 2020's would look like, all the same and all the fear, the stationaryness and stillness. NYE is a completely arbitrary marker of time, but it does put something to bed.
Here's hoping for 2021.
