When the New Year came rolling in

I really wouldn’t have known. I was well and truly asleep by that time. Right where I wanted to be. And I don’t care who says otherwise or what you think of me, I’m a dull thud and sleep rocks.

Image courtesy of Serge Bertasius Photography at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

New Year’s Eve used to be so important to me when I was a twenty-something. We planned our festivities, making sure that our Grand Tour of the local watering holes, in search of that mythical New Year’s Eve Hookup, ended up at the appropriate spot and time for the big Stroke of Midnight reveal. It wasn’t unusual during those years to see your first sunrise of the new year before you had your first sleep of the new year.

 

By the time I was a thirty-something the tradition had morphed into a swirl of parties with one’s significant other, held at the homes of friends and acquaintances. On those years that I happened to be without significant other, so as not to be a third wheel, I might revert to the tradition of the previous decade, and make the Grand Tour, looking again for that mythical hookup. But if I did, I felt like the oldster trolling in the kiddie pool. These year’s were still punctuated by the Stroke of Midnight reveal, but rarely involved sunrise.

And with each passing decade, the tradition grew more and more subdued, more and more restrained. Until we reach the present. Dinner at a local restaurant, home in time to watch the late news, asleep when the Stroke of Midnight reveal rolled in. I did see sunrise today, but not in the way I did as a twenty-something.

I think it may be that, through all of those Stroke of Midnight reveals, I realize that they weren’t so revealing after all. It’s not the first Stroke of Midnight reveal of the year that is meaningful, but all the others hours in between them. That, and a good nights sleep.

Did I mention sleep rocks?
Stroke of Midnight