New Year's Eve

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~Bill Vaughan

I don't know which category I fall into in regard to the above quote. There is a bit of both in me, I think.

I watched the last light of the last day of 2006 fade from the trunks and boughs of the pines on top of the hill near my house. It seemed to cling just a little longer than usual, as if the year was hesitant to pass on, as if it would stay now that its time has come.

Yesterday and last night, torrential rains swept through Podunk. The rain was sufficient to set dry streams running and to cut shallow rivulets through my driveway. As I listened to it pounding the metal roof in the back of the house, I kept thinking that it was the hand of God washing away the old year, cleaning the slate, as it were.

2006 was not a particularly good year for me. Those of you who have been reading me for a long time may have noticed the shift of topic and tone in my blog; of course, with the infrequency of my blogging, the change may not be apparent. It's been so much easier to stick with the trivial or not to write at all. If you know me personally, you may have noticed that my usual taciturn nature has been even more than its usual solitary self.

There were things from the past that came back to me this year, things I cannot and will not discuss in a forum such as this, but suffice it to say, these things put a crack into that thin roof of hell upon which the famous quote says we all stride picking flowers, oblivious to the imminent danger just below. The idea that the monsters in the closet come back after childhood is over is enough to make anybody run, and running is exactly what I've been doing. Things I used to care about and enjoy have been pushed to the wayside. Friendships I treasure have been allowed to slide into decline. It's been easy to be too busy for everything because being busy keeps the mind from having time to engage topics better left alone.

I refuse to live 2007 this way. If I do, the monsters in the darkness win. So tonight, as I prepare for my own observances of the death of the old year and the birth of the new, I am lighting every candle in the house. The lights on my porch still glow and twinkle. There will be no darkness, no horrible things waiting in the shadows tonight. I will meet the new year with hope and with purpose. My family has its own traditions, and one of those is that odd-numbered years are lucky for us. I am looking forward to a lucky and healing 2007.

Happy New Year to you, wherever you may be.