NYE

Well there are a few events every year that I think are pretty typical subjects. These are normally the major holidays: Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. There are a few other’s that get press time as well: Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, sometimes MLK, Mother’s day, or Father’s day. So I thought I would just write a couple quick paragraphs on New Year’s Eve 2006. This event has changed quite a bit for me through my life and I assume it will continue to change. This year was one of those times.

Originally New Year’s Eve I think for most people is an abstract thing. When your young your parents dress up hire a baby sitter and go out. You go to bed and the next day is a new year. A couple years later you are allowed to stay up late and watch people on the TV in Times Square watch a ball of lights fall, you go to bed and the next day is a new year. When I got older I used it to make money by watching other peoples small children, though I still watched the ball drop on TV, got a nice tip, then went to bed and the next day was a new year. So up through middle school, while I understood what was going on, I wasn’t really affected by New Year’s much.

In High School this did change a lot but I did start to celebrate more. This is when my friends and I had figured out that we like to party from time to time and any excuse was good enough for us. So for a few years New Year’s became a good excuse to build up to a huge all night party with friends. Though some people were dating at this time the craziness I think came from everyone having no real commitments, challenges, or responsibilities. We smuggled in campaign and though I didn’t really find it that tasty I had a glass with everyone else. At this time New Year’s became a big deal because of the celebration. The changing of the Millennium was cool. Seeing and entire century and millennium tick by certainly was interesting.

Once I was finished – at least for the first time – with school New Year’s started to become a demarcation point. My life no longer revolved around School years. Up to now the last day of school every year marked a change for me. I would refer to times when I was in 3^rd grade, or Eighth grade, and then when I was a High School Junior or when I was a freshman in College. I certainly didn’t say back in 85 or 92 or even 97. So the changing of the school year held a lot more weight as a marker in my life. I think this changes though when you get into the so called “real world”. Then you start to see what happed during a given year.

So this was very evident in the only New Year’s I really spent on my own. In 2002 when the year changed to 2003 I was in Iowa. While I went out for drinks with 2 friends for work it really didn’t seem like a celebration. It marked the end of a year that I really felt outcast and on my own. So as I felt detached and a little bit on my own I really notice the changing year. It was also the shortly after that I decided to change jobs, move home, and go back to school. So at that time I saw 2002 as my “away” year and 2003 as a “new start”. And for the past few years every year seems to hold new events and challenges. So New Year’s has become for me, what I think many people also see it as; that is as a demarcation point and a time of reflection.

This was no different. This year I noticed that there was only one person at the party with out a date and who wasn’t in a serious relationship. It was the first time I realized that we (my friends and I) as a grouped have moved into a new place in life. Every one is into their adult careers and are starting to get into, though most are not completely there yet, the family or at least married/seriously committed mode. This was further evident but the people who didn’t show up. AP and MP had just had a baby and had to stay home to take care of the little tyke. The party was fun a simple house party at my buddy’s. There was more wine than beer, there were appetizers beyond bags of chips, and the music was played on low value so people could talk and play games. It was a very nice night. It went to 3 in the morning and a couple of people I guess did stay over night but compared to even 2 years ago it was much more subdued. 2006 was a great year bring on 2007!