Happy New Year -- In a Minute or less

Wait…wait…what WAS that sound??? Did you hear it? Right around midnight on the 1st of January. I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it was a universal exhale. Seriously. Is it me? Rarely has there been a year; a decade, in fact, that almost every human being to a man, at least those I spoke with, have been so happy to see gone. For me, I wouldn’t even be adverse to employing one of those neutralizers from Men In Black—you know, the ones that erase the mind—to rid me of this time period permanently. I am not alone. What was it about the ‘aughts?’ It didn’t start out THAT badly really. But like a bad sports team (no names mentioned here) it all seemed to begin sort of well and then go completely downhill from there (I won’t be naming any administrations that entered office in 2001 here either—but please, talk amongst yourselves…). But here’s the thing…. What makes us all feel like everything is going to automatically change in the one minute between 11:59 p.m. on December 31st and midnight on January 1st? I don’t know about you, but when I woke all groggy and admittedly a little hung over at some astonishingly late point the afternoon of New Year’s Day,--nothing had changed but the date….AND I needed a couple of Tylenol on top of that. I have to admit, though, there was something in the air kind of akin to that temporary high we all had during last year’s inauguration. No. I’m not talking about the chill or the echoes of those stuck in tunnels with purple tickets. Could it be…HOPE? “No…REALLY????” you say. “Are you SURE???” No….no I’m not. I’m conjecturing here. But it’s definitely something. So why the change..and that being said, did anything really change? Yes. Nothing palpable. Nothing externally. Maybe it’s all internal. So it’s a new year; a new decade, no less. My faucet’s still broken. My car is still in the shop. My back still hurts from time to time from walking around all day in 4 inch heels. My cat is still shedding black fur all over my white shirt. But perhaps it’s all about outlook…not the Windows Office program…the one living inside your head. Perhaps a new year gives us all a chance to start over. We could do this at any time, of course, but it takes that annual watershed moment to push us to take action; to make us think; to give us that foolishly giddy notion that yesterday is gone and today, anything is possible..all in the span of a minute…all while wearing Mardi Gras beads and a silly hat. So as that clock struck midnight this January 1st, and the DJ hit the cheesy Lawrence Welk Auld Lang Syne recording..and the ball dropped on Times Square..and my cat was shedding some more on my lightly colored carpet, I was hoisting a glass of really good champagne out with people I truly adore…no doubt you were somewhere doing that as well….or I hope you were. A few weeks down the road we’ll probably all be back to the usual cynicism…truly I hope not, but let’s face it, that’s one of the dubious joys of the human species. But I did figure out how to fix the faucet and my car will be finished tomorrow. Maybe there’s hope for this decade yet…and maybe in it, someone will figure out how to keep pet hair glued onto the pet where it belongs.