Happy New Year to Me
I rang in the new year at home last night. By myself. It was awesome.
Feeling triumphant from taking care of a year’s worth of random paperwork and putting away the Christmas decorations, I settled down on the couch with hot tea, chocolate and a fuzzy blanket to spend some quality time with Gillian Anderson in the Fall. Man, is she hot. When she kissed Archie Panjabi (was this pre or post Archie's smokin’ role in The Good Wife?) there might as well have been steam coming off the screen.
At midnight, the crowd roared in Prospect Park, and the fireworks began in front of our living room window. I sat at my desk chair, watching the display and thinking about thirty years of watching those fireworks. There were the early years of walking up to the park with a group people, freezing but festive; the years of waking up to the sound of fireworks after passing out from another day with two children under the age of four. The grief-ridden night we said goodbye to 2001 with Elizabeth and the kids after Dave had died on September 11th. The years Mark and I kissed with love and affection but no passion. The year I exchanged passionate kisses with a lover who turned out to be bat-shit crazy.
Last night I was alone but not lonely. There were plenty of new years eves when I was with others, but felt terribly alone. Maybe one day I will be with someone and not feel lonely. But for now, I am happy to take my friend Will’s advice: declare victory and move on. 2018, here we come: me, myself and I.