(Happy) New Year

Well, here it is. Another year. I have a confession to make. I don't see New Years Day as anything to celebrate. It's just another day to me. I go to bed and when I wake up the next morning, nothing looks any different. Everything is the same as it was the day before. The only difference: I am one day older.

So last night, I was laying in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, waking long enough to turn the TV back to The Sci-Fi channel's "Twilight Zone" marathon. My son kept taking advantage of the fact that I was drifting off by turning the station back to VH-1 or something every time I did. (We have a rule in our house, that whoever is on the computer gives up rights to the TV remote control)

I was just dozing off again when there came a most God awful racket from outside, and I could just see, through the diaphanous curtains, flashes of multi-colored lights in the sky.


Midnight in Clear Spring.

I suppose I should consider this day as representative of a new beginning and a fresh outlook on life.

But it's Winter. I hate Winter. It's cold and bleak and depressing. It brings snow and ice and I hate driving in snow and ice. But I have to. It is my job. Actually, driving in snow and ice isn't too bad in itself. It's the idiot other drivers who don't know how to drive in snow and ice, but insist in doing so, that aggravate me.

Anyway, I think they should move New Years Day celebration to the first day of Spring. Spring represents to me a new beginning much better than the beginning of another calendar year. Spring is the time of year that brings new growth. Growth of flowers, grass, leaves.

And hope.

Hope for a brighter, better future. Hope that bad times are over. Hope that bad situations will turn themselves around. Hope that the unfortunate becomes fortunate. Hope that maybe this year, my finances get straight and I can finally get caught up. Hope that maybe this year, this cycle of bad luck I have been experiencing for 53 years will miraculously turn into good luck.

Maybe this is a good time to explain. I am exactly like my father. He articulated this phenomena better than I could. He always said:

"If it was raining soup, and I was starving, I'd be outside with a fork".

Conversely, my brother, who is closest to me in chronological age, has an overabundance of luck. This is what I say about him:

"He could fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose."

He once told me (true story) he has never met anyone who has as much bad luck as I do. And I have never met anyone who has as much good luck as he does.

Isn't there some Chinese proverb or religious philosophy that describes this? Ying and Yang or something?

Anyhow, now that I've thoroughly depressed myself, have a Happy New Year.