A New Year

Most holidays are either religious events that mean nothing to me, or sociopolitical bullshit like Columbus Day or America Is #1 Day (in early July). So one of the few holidays I actually observe (rather than just going through the motions for my family) is New Year's Eve/Day. Sure, January 1 is an arbitrary day selected (I think) by a Roman emperor, and the year number is a miscalculation of how long ago somebody's god was born. But the "year" is a concrete physical phenomenon around which so much our lives revolve, and the planet-wide festivities as midnight 1/1/2000 swept around the globe indicates a pretty universal acceptance of that date, at least for international purposes. So I celebrate New Year's Eve on 31 December.

As a kid that meant staying up late and listening to the countdown of the "top hits" of the year on the radio. As a high-school/college student it meant finding a party where I could get really drunk. A few times I got to go to parties with my boyfriend, but more often we found ourselves in different cities that night. Since I lost him altogether, it's become a more private affair. In fact, I've made excuses a couple times to avoid getting roped into going to some crowded bar, so I could stay home alone.

(The one exception was in 1999. It was the New Year's Eve I'd anticipated since childhood, the one where you knew you had to have a good explanation for "where I was at the turn of the millennium", the night you were gonna party like it was 1999, and... I spent it happily sipping a couple beers and just hanging out with my sisters and their families at my parents' house. I got up early the next morning and witnessed "the dawn of the new millennium" as the sun came up; it was pretty, but cold.)

Lately, I get a bottle of wine, some snacks that I'd normally avoid for health/nutrition reasons, maybe make a pizza, and... clean the house. OK, I know that seems pathetic, and it probably is. But it gives me a chance to feel like I'm getting a fresh start on the new year. The shower curtain is clean, my e-mail inboxes are empty, the freezer-burned veggies and the half-used jar of spaghetti sauce from April have been thrown out, the CDs (musical and ROM) are all neatly stored, I've rearranged my office to get things where I can use them more easily... everything's as it belongs.

Of course that's not really true. Not about my life, that is. I still don't have a job I like, I've never been fatter and less agile than I am now, I've made zero progress on several projects I've been wanting to do (a few of them for many years now), I'm rather short on good friends, and I'm farther from finding a soulmate (or even a good fuck buddy) than I've been since before I came out over 15 years ago.

Which makes it all the more important to have the parts of my life I can get a handle on and do right, taken care of. So that's how I'll be spending New Year's Eve this year. Not so much a celebration, but the next best thing: a fairly satisfying accomplishment of that which I can do: getting things set so that maybe this year I'll have the hope and motivation to do a little better than last... and if not, at least do no worse.