Where to begin?
Forgotten years of childhood, knowing of New Year's Eve but not understanding why people celebrated, aware only of the fact that it signified the winding down of Christmas vacation, the bliss of leisure time ending, the return of the daily grind of school.
Later--late seventies to early eighties--my brother John and I discovered the joys of mocking Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, riffing on the ever-lamer hosts and musical guests, our sarcasm barely masking the fact that it was New Year's Eve and we had nothing better to do.
Time passed. John moved out, moved away, got a life. I didn't. I spent much of the eighties and half of the nineties in limbo, watching the assembled crowds in Times Square, longing to be there, or anywhere, on the outside looking in.
In '96, I spent New Year's Eve with John again, only this time he had family. His wife and kids drifted away as the evening wore on, and we riffed on Dick Clark just like in the old days, and stayed up most of the night, talking, laughing. It felt good, but also like a wake, a commemoration of a way of life that was coming to an end. Things were about to change, I could feel it. I just didn't know how.
About a month later I met Sue Ellen. When we got married, it was--why not?--on New Year's Eve. For three years after that, New Year's Eve doubled as a celebration of our anniversary. On the fourth year, the celebration was a bit muted, the marriage in crisis. Three months after that, we split for good.
New Year's Eve 2002, with what should have been my fifth wedding anniversary looming, unbearable sadness in the air, I found myself back at John's, in safe company, with enough laughter and commotion to mask my heartache. So I returned the next year, and the next and the next, and it always felt good to be there.
And I returned last year, a mistake I may still be paying for. By that time, Tabbatha and I had made vague plans about moving in together, about taking our relationship to another level. I'd spent Thanksgiving with her, and Christmas, but those were spent surrounded by her family. New Year's would have been our time together, but I foolishly chose to celebrate the past, to cocoon in warm memories of the past instead of living in the present, ditching the woman I loved for...what?
Tabbatha knew New Year's Eve doubled as my wedding anniversary, and she always felt she had to compete with my memories of Sue Ellen. Had I been there for her, had I exorcised all the ghosts of the past in celebration with her, maybe...
Ah, but that's just speculation. This New Year's Eve...Well, I'm back outside, but not really looking in. I have to work today and tomorrow, and there's not much time for celebrating, anyway. I'm just here, waiting to see what happens next.
