This is the day; one of two in the year that you would most definitely find me drunk.
It is the day in childhood that should have been the biggest, best, and most fantastic, but instead was so damn boring, i wanted to do anything to cause fireworks. If my parents did not go to sleep early (and insist the same fate for us), their big celebration of the new year was to go on our front lawn, in our pajamas and bang pots and pans. OH MY GOSH! How much more hick could you get?
New Year’s Eve, in my head was a moment of fantasy, a threshold between what was real and what could be. . . anything could happen in tomorrow – next year – the future. i have always loved this magic moment.
But it has not loved me. Somehow, no matter how many i was dating, or who, or for how long, i have always ended up alone on this amazing night. Alone with my fantasies and dreams for the fireworks, THE kiss, The dancing under full moon.
And then, everything changed when i finally met HIM in college. We started dating in October and by Christmas he flew me to New York to meet his family, friends, and world. We spent New Year’s Eve in Time Square with millions – the very coolest place you could ever be! After the ball dropped, we went to fantastic, glamorous parties in Manhattan, and then took the train back to Long Island as the sun was rising.
This tradition was topped with one even better year – 1996 – we went to Edinburgh, Scotland and were married on New Year’s Eve, in a castle. Leaving the next day for our 10 day honeymoon in Paris. It was perfect . . . finally.
Until 2004 – in the middle of a divorce, he took the kids to New York (how could i steal this amazing tradition from them), and left me here in the fantastic Inland Empire.
I could not stand to be alone, i could not stand to be with anyone else (how could anyone understand the twisting and screaming pain), i was only able to exist in a drunken bliss. Who needs anyone else when i have myself – the drunk, fun, intellectual, beautiful, sexy, superhuman – version of me!
It backfired within 5 years of deciding to include alcohol in my daily life, i was unfit – unfit for work, unfit for a real / sane relationship, unfit to parent my boys, unfit to drive, unfit to be on dates, unfit to party, unfit to leave the house, unfit to be on the phone, unfit to text anyone, unfit to pay bills, unfit to clean the house, unfit really for even being alive.
i came to wonder how people came to have the will to live.
i started an experiment to see how long i could stay in my house and do nothing.
i left only for more alcohol and more videos.
In one moment of clarity, i realized that i actually could never come out again – i could just stay there and die one day.
i screamed at God, “If you want me, you will have to come and get me because i am NOT coming out.”
This was the beginning of where i am now and where i go tomorrow.
i am hopeful still, on this New Year’s Eve – because my life has changed so much in the past year, and i am promised that if i am “. . . painstaking about this phase of our development, [i] will be amazed before [i am] halfway through.”
