Averland

after all the hoopla of the holiday season, where the festivities and feasts feel like a lifetime of social eating, i’m ready to relax in the relative downtime of late december.  then, sneaking up like a surprise party after a bar mitzvah bash, new years eve demands my attention.  normally,  the overwhelming pressure to celebrate the incoming year on a grand scale led to stress and disappointment.  scrambling to secure friends’ schedules was akin to grasping at grasshoppers in flight.  the important people would be called first, to determine their availability.  until a free friend was found, i would work through my list of cell phone contacts.  some years, plans would be made with my sixth best option:  acquaintances with whom i never communicate, but who would offer a familiar face with whom to warble auld lang syne.  it’s as if i was settling on empty companionship simply to avoid solitary status. this year, the approach was different:  with a fiancee and a calm attitude, i headed to the most congested congregation of revelers:  city hall.  although i was surrounded by fun-loving party people, many taking swigs from bottles and slipping on snowbanks, i was perfectly content in the love bubble.  the fireworks illuminated our embrace when the witching hour proclaimed the new year, as the pressure to celebrate melted away forever.