We all drift.
Slightly touching, slightly bruising – we move through periods of life at an undetermined speed, where the future becomes hindsight and the present slips quickly into the past.
I was at a New Year’s Eve party near Washington D.C. only hours ago, and noticed this so-called “drift.”
It was approximately 11:52 when I carefully climbed the back of a couch in heels, and perched on a ledge above the chaos. My friends and I held our champagne in noisy expectation, surveying the packed room.
The large crowd below us was also prepared. Everyone held some sort of beverage while haphazardly watching the television pan Times Square’s cold faces. (I silently thanked God I was not anywhere near Midtown, Manhattan.)
New Year’s celebrations are always slightly bittersweet. Yes, it’s the beginning of the next chapter, and a good ol’ party is certainly appreciated.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
But it’s also the birthday of time. And time seems so vastly limiting.
“Seven, six…”
Take for instance, this party: Old friends, long ago acquaintances, new faces, names I’ve forgotten… they’re all blending together for this one moment in time. But it’s not enough! Within hours of midnight, I’ll be back on a bus traveling to New York.
“Five, four…”
And then what? On January 2, time is more or less forgotten. We retreat to our routines pre-holiday season in anti-climactic huffs. Another year has passed and we’ve drifted in and out of jobs, relationships, and homes.
Sometimes it seems as though we’re counting down toward the end, and not the beginning.
“Three…”
(Am I bringing you down? Well, I warned you about my bittersweet thoughts on the New Year.)
“Two…”
The less sour side of my opinion reveals a more optimistic outlook:
How extraordinary the connections we form; how fascinating our webs of finely-weaved hellos and goodbyes. Are there not so many people still left to meet and so many intriguing opportunities left to conquer? The thought of harping extensively on what’s already happened suddenly seems cruelly stifling.
The clock may be ticking loudly in our ears on January 1, but it certainly never stops. So embrace this fluid motion.
Slightly touching, slightly bruising, or full-on crashing into one another…
We drift on.
“One!”
Happy New Year.
May 2013 lead to some of your greatest adventures yet.
