New Year's Eve

Every once a year, a night would turn into a day.
None of the rules would apply to that night, no ultimatums to get to bed, no study hours to be adhered to, no 'lights out'.
There would even be a cake to be cut, to be eaten.
And toffees.
There would be music, friends, and an inviolable licence to stay awake all night. Even to play.
Then there would be the greeting cards. The new diaries. The new almanacs.
The special shows on TV. Maybe even some movies late in the night.
Maybe even a new dress.
Everybody would be there, smiling, jumping around as if life had just begun.

Once every year, I reminisce on those days as a little kid, and try to relive the feeling. The allure of that night and the bubbly elation without even knowing what it is we are supposed to be so happy about. The innocence that pervades memory before you understand time, before you understand life.

It's that time of the year again.

No matter how much we would like ourselves to believe otherwise, it's hope we live on. And this is the one night that, more than any other, exemplifies our amorosity with hope. We all know tomorrow's just another day, we know our lives won't suddenly liven up in the morning, our secret wishes won't promptly manifest themselves on our world, our jobs won't miraculously get exciting the next time we go to office, our worries won't just fade away just as a number fades away across our calendars, but just the same, we wish ourselves a happier and more prosperous year than the one we just had. And believe we will. No matter how young you are or how old you are, however much you might have seen in life to negate this hope, you just can't stop a little bubble from rising inside your heart at the prospect of facing the new year, at the prospect of the unexplored, at the prospect of the new. It's just who we are.

There will be a moment tonight which will belong to nothingness in time, one neither a part of this year nor the next, a tiny void that carries my hopes for everything that lies beyond. I am not dancing, I'm not singing, I'm not even smiling, but I am hoping. So I can slip into it. And live forever.