Out With The Old, In With The New

I’ve always considered New Year’s Eve an arbitrary holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I like having the day off work (yea, I have the day off…public sector employee, remember), and I’m a sucker for all things sparkly and bubbly and filled with shredded bits of colored paper . . . but dressing to the nines and drinking ‘til you drop merely because 365 (or 366) days have passed seems so random. Kind of like the publishing industry. (Seriously, people, what lands one girl-in-love-triangle-solving-work/identity/body-image-crisis-with-the-help-of-quirky-gay/bawdy-sex-addict-best-friend story on bookstore shelves while another languishes in manuscript limbo, mocking you every time you fire up the ol’ laptop?) Despite my existential misgivings (Because, yea, I go there…why even have a calendar year? Isn’t every day essentially the same? Why even have days? If a blog is posted and nobody reads it, was it ever written?), I kinda like the idea of a New Year. Of giving in to the illogical notion that the act of opening a fresh calendar has real meaning. That the slate is wiped clean come midnight. It’s a Jedi mind trick, to be sure, but one I’m embracing with gusto this year. Rather than dwell on my anemic daily word count and the fact that I’m still not published (and all the other personal failings I won’t bore you with…you should see the refrigerator still sitting in the middle of my kitchen after 6 months), I’m choosing to let it go. To exhale fully when the clock chimes 12. Because only then can I breathe in the fresh, creative, hopeful air of 2011. I’m guessing it smells like rainbows and unicorns. Wishing you a year filled with your own brand of awesome. Catch ya in the double-ones.