Over the years, New Year’s Eve has been a great many things to me.
When I was a child, and actually well into when I was a young adult, New Year’s Eve was a working night. I grew up the daughter of a musician, and New Year’s Eve is the only night of the year that musicians actually make any money (and even less so now because of the insane take-over of synthesization and the over-popularity of DJs and the fact that people simply won’t pay for a 12 piece orchestra anymore…but I totally digress) – so my New Year’s Eve was always spend at home entertaining family, waiting for Dad to return from work. I will forever associate the advent of the New Year with the taste of Ritz crackers, smoked oysters and garlic sausage, the sound of my mother’s laugh and the perpetual smell of my grandmother’s cigarette smoke.
It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I realized one could actually go out on New Year’s. I remember coming down the stairs to go out for the very first time ever and feeling my heart wrench because it seemed like I was breaking tradition, like I was flouting the very law of my family’s existence. At 22 years old, I still asked my parent’s permission to ring in the New Year elsewhere than in front of my own fireplace. After that it somewhat became a new tradition: Christmas was for the family, New Year’s Eve was for my friends.
These days of course, I’m out here for New Year’s. On a pitch black sea that at the moment seems determined to roll us as much as possible on the way to 2014. Ship-board New Year’s celebrations are very different from what I would prefer if I were given a choice. Despite the requirements of my rather wonderful job, the truth is that I’m really not all that good with strangers most of the time, particularly if there’s any kind of alcohol involved. I do drink yes, but not a great deal (okay, usually not a great deal), and only among those I trust – and I’m really not that good with being around people who have been drinking. And let’s just say that most guests don’t seem to mind kicking off the New Year with a hangover…
So, on nights like this, I pull my connections to my Pack close, and remind myself that we’re not really all that far apart. In miles we might be, but I know that at some point tonight we will all be thinking about each other, all vaguely wishing that we could all be in the same place. And that has the odd accomplishment of putting us in the same place – at least for a few fleeting mental moments.
No, it’s all you, you’re part of me now, I’ve got ya right here…
And so as I work through the final moments of 2013, and prepare to head for the ballroom to shine and sparkle and stumble through all the people who think they can dance – I swear I will feel several sets of steps fall into place beside mine, feel the weight of invisible hands on my shoulders, and I’ll remember – that never once, in 31 years, have I rung in the New Year truly alone.
Alright 2014…let’s see what you got…