A chance to start over...again.

Shouldn’t it be “Happy Old Year?” Isn’t that what we’re really celebrating, the fact that we’ve made it through yet another year of work and life and flailing relationships and fluctuating weight and long since lost resolutions of years past? Truth is, we don’t know anything about the “new” year, so what’s so happy about it. For all we know it’s going to be the worst year ever. There’s nothing “happy” about venturing off into the unknown - if anything it’s entirely unhappy, not to mention scary, overwhelming, and just a little bit depressing (am I really the only one looking ahead thinking: “what am I doing with my life?” and “where am I going to be in another year?”)

But it's happened. Another year has come and gone and the '06/'07 changeover is looking a lot more bleak than I had originally anticipated. It's not that I don't understand the exhilarating quality that comes in those ten seconds that mark significant change, rather, everything building up to that brief window of time (like most things that I place a lot of expectation on) always ends up a disappointment.

This year I was in the middle of Times Square as I said goodbye to 2006. And no, not out in the cold with all of the millions of slightly insane people (the largest crowd in TS New Year history) but at a party in an office building on the 22nd floor that overlooked the millions of slightly insane people and the largest crowd in TS New Year history. From where I was they looked like little orange ants, and as the night progressed they started to look even smaller as I took more advantage of the open bar. When people started to count down and that big stupid ball on the roof of the building next to us started to light up and fall from the sky, a lot of things began to flash through my head all at once, like, how many vodka sodas has this been? Four?

When the ten seconds that marked significant change were over, people all around me were kissing and singing Auld Lang Syne, (which means "old long since" and I've never really understood the meaning of), and everything I'd done in the last 365 days suddenly lifted from my shoulders and I breathed a sigh of relief the way you do after you make it through the rocky landing of a plane on the tarmac – I realized I’d made a narrow escape from the perils of living my first year in New York.

Then the girl next to me dropped one of the two glasses she was drinking rum and coke out of and it shattered on the floor next to me, seeping sticky liquid under my shoes and I thought - should old acquaintances be forgot indeed.

I have a feeling that 2007 will be much the same as 2006, and that most of the things myself and everyone else have resolved to change in our lives will stay the same after the high of those ten seconds of fleeting clarity of perspective have worn away (that is, if they haven’t already). And that's okay, because we'll have another chance make more false promises and over-analyze the state of our lives as soon as this year becomes a distant memory and a new one inevitably starts all over again.