I’m so over the whole New Year’s Eve thing. Which is one of the few good things about getting older.
When I was a kid, every New Year’s Eve I’d watch my mother getting dressed up for a party, especially one night she wore a tight white satin dress with a shocking pink satin coat. In the morning they would give us party hats and noisemakers and other souvenirs from the night before. And I could hardly wait till I was old enough to go out someday in my own dazzling outfit for a glamorous New Year’s Eve celebration.
I definitely had my chance to celebrate a lot of New Year’s Eves. By now, they’re all water (and champagne) under the bridge. For all the energy I put in towards having a date and how to celebrate and what would I wear, swear to god I can’t picture a single one of my own outfits the way I remember my mother’s.
As for the events, most of them are a blur. The New Year’s Eves that are most memorable are the disasters. Like the night after a fancy dinner in Miami when the valet brought the car and my date opened my door and threw up on me. Or the New Year’s Eve on a trip to Europe with my new husband, who at midnight was snoring while I sat in bed watching bowling on TV–in Portuguese. Another hotel, in Hawaii, the year I was bald from cancer, V was asleep and I greeted the New Year alone in the hallway outside our room, sobbing. A few years later was the millenium New Years–when everyone was awake at midnight but we were stuck in a mob at City Walk in Los Angeles–me, the kids, my husband AND my ex-husband.
Is there a lesson to be drawn here? I’m not sure. But I do know this. Whether V makes it to midnight or not, I will be awake to greet 2009. Without a party hat or noisemaker. Wearing pajamas instead of a pink satin coat. And after a lifetime of experience, I have learned this: however you spend the night before, a great New Year’s celebration means that you wake up in the morning on New Year’s Day and you’re still there to tell about it.
Happy New Year to all.
My wife and I have a tradition of watching “When Harry Met Sally” on New Years Eve. Last year we tried a different movie for the occasion, but it just wasn’t as good.
Let’s hope that 2009 goes down in history as the year we didn’t slide into another Depression (or emotional depression) but instead turned the corner on this economic crisis. Let us hope, as well, that we learn from our past mistakes.
Happy New Year, Darryle, to you, your family, and all your other devoted fans!
Me, I was a Janis Ian girl…
Sorry Jane, I only remember one Janis Ian song, about being 17.
Mark, I appreciate your New Year’s wishes but not your predictions about the potential problems in 2009. I’m trying to at least make it till midnight without thinking about next year’s problems. Right now “When Harry Met Sally” sounds about as much as I could handle, too.