everyday life

I hate New Year’s Eve.  I always, always have. Really, really hate it.  I’m only starting to figure out why, though.

It’s not for the reasons everyone assumes.  It’s not because of the whole “it’s amateur hour” thing.  Nor is it because I feel some kind of pressure to have the greatest time ever. It’s not even, now that I am an old lady and mom, because it’s so hard to find a babysitter.

No.  I have finally realized why I hate it so much.  I hate it because if you, like me, feel anxious and sad about the passage of time, well, then New Year’s Eve is just ground zero for pain.

Someone teased me recently, insisting that surely this was a new thing for me, since I’ve had kids. This is absolutely not true.  In fact, midafternoon on the 31st I missed a call from one of my oldest and dearest friends.  Her message said that she still remembered the New Year’s Eve, when we were both in college (prime raging years, no?) and we went out for dinner in Harvard Square and were in bed around 10.  She said it was one of her favorite New Year’s Eves ever.  Mine too.

I can only remember four New Year’s Eves that I stayed up until midnight.  One was in high school, with the girl who was my only true friend at boarding school.  I actually don’t know if we even made it to midnight, though we tried.  She emailed me this week reminiscing about what bad rebels we were, even then.  Two were in the post-college, pre-marriage years, both in New York.  And one was the turning to 2000.  And that year I barely made it. I remember watching about four minutes of fireworks and going straight to sleep.

I’ve always felt a heaviness on New Year’s Eve.  This heaviness, if I really think about it, is an exaggerated version of a sensation I know well: a deep sadness about time’s passage.  Since the eve of 2000, I’ve insisted on being asleep well before midnight on December 31st.  I just can’t take the rawness of the night.  The entire world is poised around the turning of time, and I can’t bear it.  Everybody else seems to be celebrating, and I can’t get away from the poignant, immediate awareness of everything that has always scared me most.

It’s a similar feeling as that that haunts birthdays for me, at least Grace, Whit’s, and mine.  Tangible, evidence of the wheeling forward of time, inescapable proof that our moments on this planet are numbered.  On the whole time’s movement seems an odd combination of quixotic and inexorable, some moments stretching endlessly and others passing with blinding speed.  On New Year’s Eve, though, we come face to face with the truth of another year wheeling around.  We confront the passage of our own lives, accept that we are a step closer to the end and away from the beginning, and this causes me nothing short of anguish.

So that’s why I hate New Year’s Eve.

So.  Christmas Eve.  Everybody is dressed, ready to go to church.  This is without question my favorite church service of the year.  I holler, “Coats on, everyone!” and am met, unexpectedly, with a howl of pain from Grace’s room.  I amble in, expecting bickering over whose pen is whose or something equally critical.

Instead, Whit is clutching his face, which is bloody.  I pry his hands from his eye, and see that blood is gushing out of a cut.

“Jumping on the bed?” I ask him sternly.  He nods at me, putting his hands back up to the flood of blood.

Instantly I know we’re going to the ER.  I wanted to send Matt and Grace to church and just take Whit, someone had to hold the towel to the gushing forehead as we drove, so it turned out we all went.  At Children’s I spent a couple of hours with a very nice doctor.  Whit was given some numbing cream, some anti-anxiety medication and then stitched up.  Attentive readers will note that he also spent his very first Christmas Eve at the Children’s Hospital ER; he’s now averaging 1/3 of his Christmas Eves on earth there.  I think he’s fine with his batting average.  I am not.

The trip to the hospital, while costing me my favorite church service of the year, was almost worth it, because of the sheer comedy that Whit provided while on the medication.  He was basically ragingly drunk all night.  I knew he was ready for stitches (ie fully “relaxed”) when he turned the TV in the room to a show in Spanish and watched, attentively.  When I asked if he wanted to watch something in English he looked at me as if I was stupid and shook his head fiercely.  He turned to me, mid-stitches, with a guffaw, telling me that this was the most fun Christmas Eve ever.  After we left, en route to my parents, he proclaimed  that “this popsicle rocks!”  I wish I had videotaped him.  And yes, I did ask the doctor if I could have some of what he was having.  She said no.

When we arrived at my parents’ house for our annual Christmas Eve with our dearest family friends, I was quite ready for a glass of wine.  Fortunately, it was flowing.  As has been the case in recent years, we sang carols after dinner.  I love this tradition.  The blurry picture above is me flanked by my oldest friend-brother, Ethan, and his father (I’ve written about Ethan’s mother’s death in 1997. It remains a seminal experience for me).  This is as old as friends get, and I adore being with them.

Christmas Day was very mellow.  My parents came over for breakfast and presents, and then Grace, Whit, Matt and I spent the rest of the day together.  We went for a walk, we went to the playground, we played with presents, we read our books.  It was, honestly, quite divine.  As was, in my opinion, my centerpiece (see above).

On Boxing Day, the kids and I drove Matt to the airport early (he was headed to Florida to visit his parents) and then spent the day trying to do as many errands as we could before the snow came.  We walked down to a favorite neighborhood restaurant for an early lunch.  By mid afternoon we were watching various movies and snuggling under blankets as the snow began to flutter from the sky.  My parents came over for an early dinner of (leftover) turkey quesadillas.  Another lovely, mellow day.

And we woke up to 18 inches of snow.  The kids both popped out of bed at 7:00 on the dot, eager to see how much snow there was.  I shoveled out two cars and all around our house.  And we spent the morning sledding.  It’s hard to remain aggravated by the inconveniences of the snow in the face of Grace and Whit’s contagiously sparkling wonder about it.

Tonight I am overseeing their writing thank you notes, in my pajamas, drinking wine on the rocks.  Yesterday, Hilary sent me an email with a link to the New York Times review of Poser, by Claire Dederer.  She noted that after reading the review, and thinking that I’d like the book, she saw that Dani Shapiro had written it, so maybe I had heard of it.  I then took this picture of my bedside table to send to her.  What’s better than a beloved sister who knows me that well?  Also, the book is great.  Can’t wait to crawl into bed with it tonight.