The New Year's Transition

What's this? It isn't until the fourth of the New Year that I finally bring myself to post? Why could that be?

Well, I've been busy writing and working and cleaning and shopping and eating candy--and on New Year's Day itself I was busy sleeping and watching TV. It has always seemed strange to me that we await the New Year with such anticipation, but then turn sluggish once it actually arrives. Does that perhaps speak greater meaning?

Whether or not we go to a New Year's Eve party or other event, we stay up, we count down the last seconds, and we get excited over the whole affair. If you are at a big event, you might stay up celebrating a little past midnight. But for most of us, midnight means it's time to start winding down and finally go to bed. And even though I found myself waking up early enough for the Rose Parade the next morning, my eyes were dropping by the time it ended; nap time it was. So after being so excited for 2014, all I could do when it came was sleep. What a greeting for a new year.

But, you know, New Year's Day is, after all, only one day of the year. Even if we sleep through the whole entire day, there is still a full year of 2014 ahead. And after a while, once we stop writing 2013 on all our papers, every day is very much like any other. It's the transition we want to witness; it isn't that 2014 is so much more special than any other year that we await it so expectantly.

Except for the year it turned into 2000--that was more of an event. And I think it might also have been the first year I stayed up until midnight. Possibly.