Tabula Rasa

This is a strange time for me. Historically I never did much on New Year’s Eve, and the night just could not pass quick enough. I like to tell myself that maybe, perhaps it’s because holidays present a kind of paradox for certain people.

I suppose it’s difficult for those who possess more abstract modes of thinking we’ll call them, to immerse themselves in the strange, insular artifice of the holidays.

“No, no, not to worry things are GREAT!!! Happy New year, WHOO!!!”

…

But they aren’t.

Peddling this contrived mantra pushes the expectancy to be HAPPY on the rest of us, and for me it’s always been one I could never meet. It’s another way I'm reminded of being impossibly behind the curve.

I'm not a miser, really, far from it. It’s not as though I can’t have fun. It’s not as though I can’t enjoy simpler things, like a good old fashioned night of debauchery…

…Or of just forgetting myself for a while. Turning the volume in my head to low and the volume outside on high, and having a good time, connecting for a night with those around me, because apart from the corporate and economic-driven components that’s the most functional thing the holidays present us with, and God knows we live much of the year’s remainder, in my opinion, estranged from one another

Maybe it’s ME putting the pressure on myself.

There are things…There are always things, tangible or otherwise. Each December 31st we stand on the precipice of a new stage, an idyllic tabula-rasa, (that means “clear slate”, in the scholar’s tongue dontcha know…) whereby all of our shortcomings, failures, misgivings or mistakes the previous year are forgiven and forgotten in place of a new blueprint of productiveness. But last year’s incongruous tablate is still ever present cognition, and I puzzle over it: speckled with foggy sketches and caricatures; with good intentions, strong attempts and attempted "do-overs"; otherwise, quite incomplete.

I’ve never had much of a problem keeping promises to others, though in recent times I’ve squelched on showing myself the same courtesy.

2009 had its interpersonal ups and downs, and one thing I’ve noticed about each trend for me: when it rains, it pours.

I surprised myself on several occasions. I surprised myself with my ability to shine the way I’ve wanted to, and in front of certain people. Then as soon as it seems like it can’t get any better, the bottom falls out, and I find myself wading through the same quicksand I thought I left behind. There were propositions I made to myself, and ultimatums I therefore presented afterward: Research grad schools. Get a job. Take GRE’s. Write. Read. Write some more. Get something published. Get into a grad school. Meet someone…

…Ok. Cut your losses, Make money, write as much as you can, and at all costs, get the hell out of here…

Christmas and New Years respectively, also comprise the time when abstract thinkers are known to have…flare-ups. But with the level of alcohol, other depressants and stimulants alike flowing as they typically are, this is one of the most chemically imbalanced nights of the year anyway.

So, pulled between the options of going toe to toe with a slightly older and no less boozy crowd tipping champagne back until either the ball drops or they do, getting behind the wheel tonight and wandering the roads in search of life (and thus effectively taking mine into my own hands), or hunkering down somewhere with the network of friends and colleagues I’ve sadly never had in this glass-shop I acknowledge as where I grew up, I’m left to wait it out at home like some twenty-four hour bug with a book for company.

(hmm…what is a 95-word proclamation of pathetic?)

...

I imagine Dave Sedaris must have several stories to tell of New Years Eves spent alone: one near penniless, commonly drunk young man floating solo through life-limbo, between big cities and less than lucrative jobs during that pre-success, pre-Hugh Hamrick stint.

I’ll try and look for one…

At any rate, I hope everyone has a happy new year. My scope isn’t limited to the next few hours, rather I speak of the next 365 days and my hope for you all, like the hopes I have for myself, is that you accomplish at least a few of those things you need to; to do something NEW, and artistic or expressive in some way this upcoming year. To try at least one thing new you wouldn’t normally have. Expand your stages, and therefore your parts in the world. Add a few new dimensions to your life. Apply to a school. Or to a job, both of which you may have previous lauded as higher than yourself and hopelessly out of your reach. None of it is. I hope you find love. If you already haven't. I hope your year is full of it; for others and yourself.

(My blog was saturated with this philosophy in 09...)

Start tomorrow. No one will hold it against you for sleeping in.