Noon Year's Eve

I was going to write a quick poem. It would have been something cute about how New Year’s is nothing; a construct laid down by exhausted people looking to unwind with something that isn’t Christmas. After all, the Gregorian is only one calendar throwing around some seasons. The Jewish people have one. So do the Chinese. And let’s not forget the fiscal one, which many of us are forced to adhere to. Thankfully, the school one is about to hit the rearview, the same way the old Mayan calendar did for the kids in 2012. I’m just thrilled to be at the off season, travel portion of my show. 

As a worshiper of both history, and a symbol, I’m no stranger to New Year’s peer pressure I piled onto myself. It had to be spectacular—lousy with all the “right” people. It should be a drunken good time. Or a sober one. Both of which wound up turning into a disappointing cliche as the years bumped forward. 

Stack up the good times while you can, that mischievous voice whispered in my ear. The wheel keeps churning. And this perfect shifting of years, at that precise moment, plays out as an omen for the following 365 days. When I type it out loud, it sounds ridiculous!

In my misguided, sober youth, I was an in demand designated driver, but that only lasted so long. And truthfully, though it’s been a while, there are few things worse than being sober in a bunch of partyers thinking they are required to drink the night away. 

Y2K happened during our first New York New Year’s eve. We spent the year before waiting for Chicken Little’s sky to fall. My young software husband wasn’t so sure, thinking things were going to get worse with a computer bug on the horizon in 2038, where the continuous timer on most machinery’s clocks will turn over. He tells me this with a potentially catastrophic face. I know it’s real, but for the life of me, I can’t figure it out, so I do like all good humans do, the only thing we can—turn away, and hope someone’s upgraded us by then.

In our creaky apartment, we watched the years count down through each time zone, starting in Australia, fear lodged on my chest. Nothing beyond the usual fireworks happened—proof again that so much of life is waiting and worrying over what turns out to be nothing. Unless it is something. I’m always thankful, but a bit disappointed to have spent so much time needlessly planning. I can’t help it. 

My husband and I had trouble conceiving, but wound up with two children in quick succession. We packed them up and dragged them to any party. They sported countless indentation lines from whatever they’d fallen asleep on, to prove it.

There was a chunk of their preteens where it was the four of us. My seven-year-old was determined to make it long enough to watch the ball drop, only to collapse into the popcorn bowl ten minutes before. His brother stayed up until he fell out while we enjoyed mindless Times Square banter. We made lists of predictions for the coming year that always proved wrong, but gave us something to wish for, anyway. Once their adolescence hit, my husband and I never wanted to leave the house or be far away from the phone. 

My boys sleep most nights away from my suffocating, if loving, grasp. It’s both a relief and an ache for something I threw myself into whole heartedly, that they can’t remember. I’ve learned not to bite my nails to the quick as if that sort of chewing can bring anyone safely home. I’m not sure when I fully understood that my job was to embrace this. I gave them the confidence they needed to not need me, and I’m so proud they don’t, but you know...

Either way, that was then. Now I’m on the backend. This year I got invited to what sounded like a phenomenal party outdoorsish somewhere in the freezing Massachusetts woods. I was scared but hoping to stay warm with new friends. When it was canceled, I was bummed though I understood. It was unrelated but we’ve been conditioned to cancellations with the lung plagues going house to house. 

I thought about this year full of firsts and milestones, new friends and places. This blog, and you readers have changed everything for me. I don’t take it for granted, I want to celebrate all of it! 

I’ve proven to myself that not only do I have limitations, I can face them and be ok. Week after week, I’ve offered them to you and you’ve laughed—with me, or at me, it never mattered. So I confess to you that I can’t stay up until midnight. I haven’t seen the ball drop for nearly half a decade. 

“I just don’t think I’ll be conscious past the veggie platter,” I said, proud that I no longer call it crudités by default—another lesson from this year.

He shrugged, trying to hide his relief. “We don’t need to do anything,” he said.

It struck me like a thunder bolt. “What about Noon Years eve? We’ll do lunch. Everyone gets back in their car around 4:00. They get home before the amateurs come out.”

He couldn’t help but smile. Whether he was truly happy, or finally resigned to his fate, I still haven’t figured out.

The idea is the same, but the moment is flexible. No one turns into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight, which is a shame, but easier to recover from in the morning. I don’t need to watch the old digital roll over. I want to enjoy a quick bite and a toast to some people who have made a difference in this year, where everything was different. And I wish for you, my dear readers, wisdom, strength and another go around the sun. At least until 2038!