Happy New Year, Is It Here Already?

Every year on the 31st of December, the old year leaves us gasping for more and the new-year commences upon us with no significant alterations. It’s just a date on the calendar, a time on the clock. We shake our heads and our bodies with dizzying fervour and spasmodic jerks on dance floors, hoping for it to wake us up from our slumber, so that we can kick start the new-year like never before. But all that kicking on the floor wears us out invariably. We wake up the next day with a hangover. So January 1 is officially when we take rest, worn out from the effort to usher in an all new beginning. 

Alternatively we could just sleep in the sheets and wake up the next day, without bothering whether last morning was any different from the morning of January 1. Go about with life just like a grasshopper, from a blade of grass to another, least bothered about the time of the day or the day of the year. 

Either way, January 1 is just another day. But one that the world welcomes and celebrates. Shoe bite or not, we cha-cha-cha, salsa, slither and shake on our stilettos and boots. Grace or no grace, we rock with the music- pale or groovy does not matter. But that is just community activity. I wonder why, at the last second of the year, we raise our hands up and yell Happy New Year. I was happy the previous moment too! This time around, I actually dazed out and became passive for a few seconds. I could not do the shouting. I did recover from the trance and wished new-year to many. But the paleness of my wish was unmistakable. I realise I am on a vehicle that has only just begun to hum and rev up... I could not really register the pause! I have only recently launched on a new path professionally, one of working with people and of writing. 

But whatever it be, wishing new-year is an officially appropriate activity during the month of January. Last year sometime in June, missing the fanfare of January, I wished a few people a happy new month and they smiled and wished me back the same, condescendingly. But I am always in celebration mood. Why waste the time, when there is a happy new day every day? 

Here's what went well in the last year:

- I became more positive and assertive,

- I began writing regularly. A passion long ignored,

- I became more grounded as a person, more self-assured,

- My friendships strengthened,

- My family bonding strengthened.

And just when I was beginning to think it couldn't get better, we adopted our pet pup Penny, on the Christmas day. 

It is probably my nature. When I sit to summarise any period of time, I never find a reason to complain. Number one reason why, during my appraisals, when I was working in the traditional set up, I never had valid complaints to bother my Managers with. I am positive to the extent of being uncivilised! Civility is in finding many flaws and trying to correct them all life-long. If you don't see mistakes how will you correct them! But I see possibility in everything. 

Resolutions? Oh I went into the previous year without one, and I am glad I did. Because, how is it possible for us to know on 1st January, how the next 365 days must be spent? This absence of resolution helped me later in the year, in setting up expectations for myself, for things that did not even exist in my life in January last year! 

And am I even past the last year? Oh it is always hard for me to wish Happy New Year. I feel like passing it off for long enough so people forget all about it. I have no desire to summarise the lagging, heart breaks and failures that went along with the successes and happy moments. 

New Year is just an excuse to tell everyone I remembered you all year long. Or else it is just another day in our lives, just another brick on the wall, just another coin in the well and just another gyration of the globe. January 1 is here and it’s a bright sunny morning, yesterday was bright and sunny too.