Black Dot Diary

The Eter­nal Clock. Photo by Rob­bert van der Steeg, cour­tesy of Cre­ative Commons

I hate New Year’s Eve. Just think­ing about it puts me in a bad mood. All this build up just to watch the dig­i­tal clock click into a new twelve-​month cycle. All the TV sta­tions show­ing the year in review, with inane sum­maries deliv­ered by bob­ble heads. All the drunk kisses at mid­night from peo­ple you wouldn’t think of kiss­ing at any other time.

So I’m sit­ting here at 5 pm on New Year’s Eve frown­ing at the love of my life. “Why are you pissed at me?” he wants to know. I’m not really pissed at him but I’m crash­ing under the pres­sure to DO SOMETHING. I feel guilty that all I really want to do is stay at home, paint, and drink red wine. We have no red wine and he’s not offer­ing to go buy any so I guess we have to GO OUT and DO SOMETHING.

I’ve already turned down a din­ner invi­ta­tion from my dear friend and her fam­ily. I don’t want to inflict my NYEM (New’s Year’s Eve Malaise) on them. It just doesn’t seem right. My hus­band sug­gests a movie and then find­ing a pub. I just can’t see myself fak­ing gai­ety with the drunks. But hey, we need to DO SOMETHING.

My atti­tude to New Year’s Eve dates way back to child­hood. When I was 12, my grand­mother com­mit­ted sui­cide on New Year’s Eve, the same night that had been her wed­ding night in hap­pier times. What a night to depart the earth. How could we ever for­get even if we wanted to?

After my grandmother’s death, cel­e­brat­ing New Year’s always seemed counter intu­itive. This was not a night of happy end­ings. It was a night of sad­ness. As I got older, I got stuck babysit­ting brats and watch­ing Guy Lom­bardo while the grown ups got drunk. Later on in my teens, I also got drunk on New Year’s Eve but I never got happy on this annual hol­i­day of hul­la­baloo. I only went through the motions, a slave to the Gre­go­rian calendar’s turn­ing of the year. Tick, tick, tick, clunk.

My hus­band doesn’t know how to deal with me so he dis­ap­pears to the dun­geon to his com­puter and gui­tar. I look at my cat who has no idea it’s New Year’s Eve. Doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. He’s obsessed with chas­ing his tail. But isn’t that what we are all doing in this cycle of years, chas­ing our tails around the cal­en­dar, hop­ing at some point to beat time at its game? Oh bloody hell, now I’m really talk­ing rub­bish. Time to DO SOMETHING.

I give in to my guilt. When my hus­band comes upstairs, I agree to go down­town to eat Tibetan food. If any­thing can lift my spir­its it is surely eat­ing pot­stick­ers while think­ing of the Dalai Lama. Then I may go see a movie with the now-​dead Heath Ledger in it and think about death. After all, 2009 is in its death throws. It’s been a hell of a year. Good rid­dance to bad rub­bish. It’s time to DO SOMETHING.

PS: I just found some­thing to get excited about. Tonight, on the edge of 2010, we are being treated to the sec­ond full moon this month, known as a blue moon. Now my night has meaning!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Media, Mind, Movies, Reflections, Spirit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.