Happy New Year 2008

Another year is about to be gone. The end is near! I long ago decided not to hang any clocks in the house to be reminded of the time passing. Clocks and watches are just human inventions which in spite of their obvious functions and good intentions, causing us so much stress and grief. But whom am I kidding?! Whenever I turn around in the house, there is time slapping right on my face. It’s virtually everywhere you look: computer, cell phone, microwave, oven, TV, stereo set... Run, Pingster, Run. I run to my car, here you go again. It's there in front of the dashboard as soon as the engine is started. Exhausted, then I come to the realization there is nowhere to run from time.

New Year's Eve brings the pinnacle of that reminder of time passing. Even though it's months before your next birthday, you feel you are one year older already. Every loud group count-down shout towards the midnight pounds on the weakening heart. You follow up with Happy New Year cheers but happy is not the exact mood in which you welcome New Year. You can be merry at Christmas because supposedly Christ was born but how could you be happy at New Year because the coming of New Year also means you lost the old year. What the hell did the past year go? Out of 365 days, it's really cruel being solo on the last day of the year. You need someone by your side who does not know the answer either. 2 "don't-know"s equal to 1 "don't-care". Cheers to marriage. In the first year after I moved to Seattle I had the New Year's Eve alone. I drove to the Seattle Needle a few hours before the midnight firework show. Impatient of the long waiting in a crowd of strangers, I drove home and cracked open a large Margarita bottle. Over half a bottle later, I felt tipsy to half drunk, and believed I was knocked out by alcohol to sleep before the midnight. Later that next year I told Richard about my previous New Year's Eve. Seeing that same leftover Margarita bottle, Richard laughed uncontrollably. He said it was only Margarita mix and there was not single alcohol content in it. I then read the label. He was right. If the conceived alcohol could make me so delusional as to feel drunk, why couldn't time?

I just read this of Max Ehrman's prose poems today. It came to me in a time of need:

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Happy New Year!