In a few minutes the year changes, and with it a new slate appears before us. How we color it, how we mark it, how we make it into something pretty is all up to us. In this midnight hour, we say good-bye and hello, and by morning it will all be different.
For now, it’s like the moment before a snowstorm, when you know the world is about to change, but it doesn’t quite feel real. Vestiges of the holidays remain, glowing differently now, a little sadder and yet somehow hopeful. Their real meaning, and the true spirit, remains. It doesn’t get thrown out with the wrapping paper and ribbons, it doesn’t disappear with the boxes and the string. Someone put up these lights, someone hung these wreaths, someone decorated these trees. Someone made the effort to make the world a little cheerier. To those who do that, I offer this unheard bit of thanks.
And now, as the ball drops in our biggest city, and I’m at a friend’s party, kissing my husband at the stroke of midnight as I’ve done for the last twelve years, I make a wish that your year is as happy and hopeful as you want it to be.
