Another New Year’s Eve. This one not much like the others. For the three years before last I attended grand parties. The sort where the women dress up in gowns and the men are in tuxedos (except for one chap who always came in full camouflage gear and makeup). We’d sip champagne and watch the stars outside and dance. Sure, there were drugs, but they were done in moderation, and we all stayed civilized. I remember the first one of those parties where most of us were single and we all danced in the proper partner dancing fashion. It didn’t matter that none of us actually knew how.
This year I am at work, pretending to work, but thinking about tonight and how it doesn’t feel much like anything is happening. Some of my friends are away (many that I’d like to see live elsewhere, anyhow) and some have decided to stay home by themselves this year and ruminate on their own failures. Some have decided that fancy dinners are the way to go. We tried (about thirty of us) to reach a compromise, but all we could agree upon was that we would all go our separate ways this year.
On one hand this is a very sad thing. We are growing apart as we grow older, which all of our elders said we would, but we never believed. Some of us have finished school, while others have remained undergraduates for years and years and have no intention of ever finishing (preferring safety over risk, one supposes). Some have “real” jobs with suits and ties and business luncheons. Others, like myself, are moving on, across the country, to seek destinies on opposite coasts. Some have moved to foreign lands.
In this growing up, expanding outward, the things we once shared no longer apply. We try to recreate the bonds through sharing of drugs and alcohol, but it’s only momentary connection, which fades as the high wears off. Then we stumble off to home to lay in bed wondering how it could have ended like this. Of course, it’s exactly how it is supposed to end, we just never accepted it, or tried to deny it.
On the other hand, it’s normal and almost exciting. It is becoming obvious now as we move up in the world who we will have to leave behind and why, and it’s easier that way. We also know who our real friends are…the ones who will be with us no matter what the boundaries in distance or economics or social situation. I’ll be spending New Year’s Eve with two of the people who I’ll keep in contact with once I’m gone. It will be somewhat more quiet than I’m used to, and as right now I’m ill, it works out well, but it’s still a little disappointing. I do enjoy a good, crazy party.
Today, with work and a quiet gathering, it is becoming ever more clear to me that in two months I will be gone for California, thousands of miles away. Someone asked me how long I’ll be gone for, not understanding. Forever, I said, or at least until I retire to New Zealand or Scotland. Funny thing is, I know I’ll forget to think of them everyday, and after a while I’ll not think of them at all, until one day something reminds me of them, and suddenly I wonder how they are doing and whether they have significant others and what jobs they do. I’ll probably write a song about it. And they’ll think of me every so often and maybe email. But there will be a rift that maybe only substance abuse can fill so we can walk across.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
(check my homenode for my resolutions, if you have interest)