I Never Liked It…

..the New Year holiday, that is. I’m flashin’ back to a time before I could even write, had no clue ever what date it was, or even what a date was…..I knew when summer was here, and I knew when Christmas was coming, and always, sadly, when it was OVER.
Saddest time of the year. And suddenly all the grownups are in party mode again—why? And what are all those cartoons of people with lampshades on their heads? In fact just now, this minute, I remember the very first time I ever heard the words “New Year’s” ; I asked our dear…idk, I guess you’d call her a “nanny” (although you would laugh at the term if you could see our Appalachian employee) ) what was going on. She said “New Year’s” as though I oughta know what that was. God, as I write I can HEAR her saying that, I can see her, smell her soapy starchy presence… I’m grateful for that, wherever else this goes. But whatever “New Year’s” was, it never seemed to even, ah, hold a candle to Christmas!

I reckon my mother always had aNew Year’s Eve party, and now I’m remembering the stage of peeping at the living room from the stairs, my sister and I, like two chubby little birds from their cage…then a few years later when we were big enough to stay up, the New Year’s Eve party became THE social event of our season. We always had outfits that matched or echoed my mother’s elegant “hostess gown”, and, well, it was just the coolest night ever. It was to us the height of glamour!

Did I ever mention that my parents never served alcohol? No, this was all just…the atmosphere my mother created. She was a genius at it.

So, those years were the high point of my new Year’s experience. I never gave a New Year’s Eve party of my own. Too competitive. I sometimes wish I hd gone to Times Square back in the days when you could just stroll in any time you wanted and leave by time you wanted. Now, you get penned into some side alley for like 6 hours. But we never did that. Most New Year’s Eves have been..quiet. Lonely, even. A letdown.

Tonight is no exception. Not that I’m sorry not to be at some party. We’ll be going down to Philadelphia to our club tomorrow, and that’s plenty, especially after the absolute marathon of entertaining I’ve done this season.

But really what is there to celebrate? If you just had a great year, you’re sorry to see it end. If you had an awful, sad year—well, what makes you think you aren’t in for more of the same?

Time is the great implacable enemy of us mortal beings. Whatever and whomever I have lost in 2022, I will never see again.

I understand that our primary, maybe our only desire, is: to live. To live! But is that enough reason to throw a big party every year for Time, our foe?
it never seems that way to me, never has, never will. We are looking into the dark abyss of the future. And what I feel, especially tonight, is terror.