Happy New Year, My Friends!

I confess that I’m not much of a New Year’s Eve person. I tend not to make resolutions – at least, not publicly – and have to force myself to stay awake for the countdown, and then only because my kids insist on it.

I attribute part of my NYE discomfort to the celebrations of my childhood. My earliest memories of the night place me under a table in a restaurant with my godbrother while the adults and older kids carouse topside. For several years my family went with my godparents and their sons to a steakhouse in a tourist mountain town about 45 minutes from our home. We chowed down on steaks and potatoes while the house band played the current country hits. A faint memory bubbles up of an older lady sitting a few tables over from us handing my brother a $5 bill for dancing with her. He came back celebrating and stuffed the bill in his pocket, a boon for a 10-year-old at the time.

I enjoyed the first part of the evening, always game for a good meal and music. But by the time the clock struck 9, I was done, to say nothing of it tolling twelve midnight. My godbrother (6 months younger than myself) and I crawled under the table at some point and curled up like puppies, trying to ignore the din above. Mostly we succeeded until our parents yanked the tablecloth up to announce the new year, noise makers and horns blazing. Had I any command of the more colorful side of the English language at the time, I would have deployed it.

Now I know my audio sensory processing issues (read “misophonia”) clashed hard against the loud voices, constant music, laughter, tinking glasses, and more. Around 9 p.m. I still can’t stand much sound. As a child I crept downstairs to stop the pendulum from swinging in our grandfather clock so I could sleep. If a faint ticking effected me in such a way, you can imagine how my body vibrated to the racket of a New Year’s Eve party.

Tonight I’ll stay up with the fam and do my best to stay cheerful. I hope to play a board game or maybe some Mario Kart on the television before watching a countdown on some streaming service or another. Initially I considered cooking a celebratory meal but my energy for that waned around December 26. About the best I’ve managed the last few days was some chicken alfredo upon the request of my oldest last night (totally worth it and tip: add some white wine before the cream).

However, I make no resolutions again this year. My mind retains 20+ unfinished goals from the past three years and that’s enough to keep me both overwhelmed and feeling mediocre at best, a failure at worst, which is why I avoid resolutions. If you love making them and have great success in keeping them, I love that for you and want to know your secret. By no means do I intend on ruining anyone’s revelry or NYE parade. My beef lies with the motivation behind most resolutions rather than the concept itself.

In my experience, resolutions often begin, “I’m finally going to…” or “this year I’m committing to actually…” Behind most we find unachieved goals or resolutions of the past. The resolved end up ferreting out (without much effort) ways in which they feel they fall short in this life. Resolutions surreptitiously emphasize past shortcomings and failings as the maker, emboldened by alcoholic libation, promises to wake up tomorrow a new person capable of reaching the previously unattainable height.

An invitation for you, instead, this year: no resolutions but only celebrations. Tell me what you wouldn’t change. I want to hear how you feel you blew past goals you didn’t know you had to do something extraordinary in 2023. Allow me to celebrate with you the ways in which you shared with the world your amazing self, exhibiting your strength and resilience in the year that passed and how you commit to continue to do more of the same in 2024. Don’t give me your failings and renewed dedications for change; instead let us honor the amazing you that you carry forward in the new year. Maybe a failing led to a success or a new lesson learned about yourself. I’m game for toasting that till midnight!

I fail to find the “new” you fascinating. The “old” you, on the other hand, I want to learn more about – those bumpy and windy bits of your journey that brought you challenges and triumph because the strength was in you all along.

Happy New Years, my friends. Take all of you into tomorrow and let 2024 be one more year to celebrate the marvelous, magnificent, astonishing, breathtaking YOU!