Here I am …. on the eve of another New Year. Good-bye 2014 and Welcome 2015.
It’s been a long, long time since I felt any desire or pressure to have special plans on this night. And this one, I will spend quietly with Sarah. We talked about going to a movie and did some planning toward that end but decided in the end to find something on SOD. Easier, cheaper, more comfortable, and this way I get to drink champagne while we watch!
I recall the first New Year’s Eve I spent with Bill in 1994. As we wandered around downtown Miami, taking part in some latino festival, I told him that I had never before spent the night of December 31st with someone I loved. That evening – and those feelings – seem so long ago that they could have taken place in a different life, or be something I read in a novel. I have other New Year’s Eve memories but they are all rather vague compared with the one of 1994. It does seem to me that it’s a time to spend with someone we love, so I’m delighted to be spending this one with my lovely 17 year old daughter. I know she would rather be at a party with friends. That day will come.
I’m interested in that feeling of detachment we feel from our own memories. Why should that be? Is it because we change so much as we age that we can’t relate to our younger selves, and the memories we make? If so, what a pity. Detachment can bring perspective, but it brings in analysis, questioning and criticism as well. If only we could just swim in our memories and enjoy them as we did at the time we made them, rather than feeling this long-distance relationship with them.
When I think of my 60 years of living and all people and places, jobs and residences that reside in my memory I realize there are many periods that I hardy ever revisit. Neglected and un-dusted, they sit on a shelf and only occasionally do I wander in to glance at them and pass on. Are we meant to hoard and savour our memories, or just stand in the current of life and let it float past, capturing the occasional bit of flotsam to examine? Well … all this is tending to naval-gazing in the extreme. And because I’m pressed for time (we have a movie to watch!) I can’t labour over the language and express my feelings as fully as I would like. Fortunately I’m only writing for myself and a limited (and I hope loving) audience. For the record, my ramblings are not champagne-inspired (the bottle is still corked) but the musings of a thoughtful mind, poised on the brink of a New Year. May it be joyous and blessed!