The most glamorous New Year’s party I ever went to was in 1981. I was 18 and full of bite. Us girls spent hours fooling with slinky dresses that had straps falling off the shoulder. I passed around gold glitter that we splashed on our hair, our necklines, our cheeks. The sheer height of my new high heels took some practicing, and more time to whittle the contents of my purse down to the tiny midnight blue evening bag. The party was a huge crowd of cheerful friends, most of whom I knew, but maybe not. It didn’t matter though because on New Year’s eve, everyone is a friend. We drank wine and flirted outrageously, and the shoes got kicked off and under a couch somewhere. For a little bit I sat with a friend on the curving wooden stairs of a dark attic hallway and talked about sad things that had happened that year. There was just a crack of light coming through the door, but it was enough to bring us back, eventually, to the flirting and kissing and talking and dancing.

We waited for midnight with an impatience bordering on hysteria, then exploded like a dessert brush fire, sparks flying everywhere the moment it arrived. Hours later, collapsed on the bed in a dazed shock, I knew without doubt that the new year had taken my body and soul utterly and exhaustively.

That we unleashed the new year with so much passion may have been function of youth, since these days my New Year’s celebrations are more likely to feature chunks of sourdough bread dipped from a long fork into a steaming cheese fondue. It could be that the tangled questions I face today aren’t solvable by resolutions made in the midst of holiday high blood sugar, or perhaps it’s that high heels seem increasingly idiotic. In the meantime of 17 years I’ve been knocked down and gotten up enough times to know that there is no knockout so bad that I’d be down for the count.

Instead, the bells and whistles of my halcyon days have been traded for boxing gloves that protect my fingers from most of the rough stuff. If I’m not making resolutions this year, it’s not that there is less hope for the future, it’s just of a different flavor. I’ll take on the tough questions as they come, minute by minute until midnight. Maybe I’ll even go a little glam this year, and risk fondue drizzling down my new chiffon skirt.

Good tidings and a happy new year to you and yours!

Copyright November, 1998

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