Good morning and a Happy New Year.
I don’t really “do” New Year’s Eve. If I had my way I would be in bed by 10.30pm and sleeping through the whole wretched affair.
I am not sure why I feel this way about December 31st but I have done for years. I don’t really enjoy going to parties that start at 7.30pm and by 9pm you are either running out of things to say / shattered or pissed. Yet you have to keep going, until 12pm and then you try and work out at what point you can leave. Is 12.05 too rude? Is 1am too late?
If we are not at a party but at home I feel I have to stay up for the sake of the children who are all now old enough to see in the New Year. To go to bed before them seems rude on New Year’s Eve.
This year we are away at the in law’s and have had Christmas dinner for lunch and drank into the witching hour in front of the TV. Perfect.
There seems to be so much expectation attached to what lies ahead. Lots of chants of “this IS going to be my year” or “this is the year when I do X Y Z” etc. And then none of that happens, life throws a curve ball and it all goes pear shaped. So many years I have thought “well that was rubbish, this year HAS to be better” and then we have lost loved ones, faced major traumas, unemployment, general unhappiness.
Why do we put ourselves under such immense pressure? Why do we have to build up to January 1st? Why do we have to start our diets / menu planning / quest for love / budgeting JUST because of what the diary tells us? Surely if we were that bothered we would do it on our birthday, for isn’t that also the start of a new year?
Surely we are just building ourselves up for failure and disappointment.
So this year there is none of that for me. 2012 is not going to be my year. It might be,though, I don’t know right now. And do you know what, I don’t care. I have no high hopes for it. It will just be.
If good things happen they shall be a surprise. A lovely pleasant surprise. And if nothing terribly dramatic happens, that is just fine. I don’t need peaks and troughs. A nice plateau will suit me just fine.
It is not that I am without hope and dreams. Far from it. But actually I am happy with my lot and will continue to be happy with that lot.
Yes I could be richer, thinner, more able to take time off in 2012, but lets be realistic.
Much more exciting is the idea that I have a brand new A4 day to a page diary to start filling up.
Wherever you may be, whatever you may be doing, may you be happy and content and still reading my crazy blog this time next year.
Now that IS something to drink to.