Another Year, Another Disappointment
In the penultimate scene of my favorite movie, When Harry Met Sally, guests at a New Year’s Eve party sing the bizarre ditty “Auld Lang Syne.” Even though he just won over the girl, Harry hears it and wonders what that song actually means. When I hear that song on New Year’s, I wonder: why am I spending so much money on such a bad time?
The whole thing is a lie. Society tells us to spend it with the love of your life. And if you don’t have one, the “system” lets you know you will meet that person as long as you attend an event with an absurd cover charge and drinks five-and-a-half times the normal price. So every year, I expect to meet the love of my life (actually, I’ll settle for the like of my life) at an epic party. He’ll run up to me, proclaim his love, accept my imaginary flaws, and we’ll walk off into the sunrise.
Here's the problem: it hasn’t happened, and it’s not because no one invites me to the party. It’s because New Year’s is a night of false expectations, crushed dreams and unobtainable hopes – like finding a seat in the library during finals. It isn’t going to happen. So, I hate New Year’s Eve.
Maybe my hatred stems from the trauma of all those invitations to big high school bashes being lost in the mail, year after year after year… Now, I’m not advocating for ending all New Year’s Eve celebrations. I just think we should reexamine how it’s celebrated. Perhaps the celebration style isn’t the problem: instead, it’s the extreme expectations we put on the night.
Why does the evening of December 31st dominate the social calendar between Christmas and Reading Week? Is it because the celebratory moment – the climax of the evening as it were – is midnight? Well, university students’ weekend socializing doesn’t even begin until after midnight and isn’t successful unless one sees the sunrise. Whether it’s at Stages, Ale, or Trin, almost weekly, students mark the turning of the calendar with $1 beer, loud music, and a crowded dance floor.
If the timing of New Year’s Eve celebrations isn’t much different than a typical Saturday night, why the high expectations? What is the difference between staying out past midnight on a random date, and what happens every weekend during the school year? Birthdays mark the passing of time in an individual’s life, as one becomes older, wider, greyer – and saggier. Unlike other winter holidays, there’s no expectation of gift-giving on New Year’s Eve (or more importantly, gift receiving). The ending of the winter holiday season is hardly cause for celebration – more school, more classes, more stress.
Also, large segments of our community have already celebrated their new year with family, food, and festivities. In Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the Lunar New Year occurs in late January or early February – and it’s filled with meaningful traditions. In some countries, it is customary to decorate with red, exchange red envelopes, and spend time with family. Take China for example, where the greeting “Wishing you prosperity and wealth” is exchanged on Lunar New Year. The most common greeting on December 31st “Happy New Year” — is about as meaningful as hearing your great aunt recount her bunion removal at a Christmas party.
In the Jewish culture, which also follows a lunar calendar, the Jewish New Year holiday of Rosh Hashanah is commemorated in the fall and is marked by the consumption of apples and honey for a sweet new year. Lest anyone think it’s all fun, the Jewish new year is also the time — the tradition goes — when God inscribes the names of the living in the “Book of Life.” One prayer reads on that day, God is deciding “who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast…”
Those are some real new year’s stakes, bitches.
Don’t get me wrong — I love the idea of a fresh start — the chance to stop drinking, to study more, and to pay for a gym I won’t visit. The notion that in a moment, an entirely new year is starting. I mean, at one moment it’s 2022, and then poof, it’s 2023. Yikes! The opportunity to make all those bad granddad jokes — “see you next year” — or to make soon-to-be-unkept resolutions might be attractive to some, but not me.
Still, I’m resolving that 2023 is my year. I believe it. After the past couple, we’re entitled to a party to honor how far we have come. ‘Cause it’s all about the future. This New Year’s Eve won’t mark the end of a year, but the beginning of a 365-day journey to a better place for our ever-evolving planet. To COVID-19 pandemic, environmental crises, economic dislocation and the rest, F-you too!
Now I’m ready to go out and celebrate. Find a big New Year’s party. Sing “Auld Lang Syne” at the top of my lungs. Express my feelings. Meet my Harry. Now, if only the post office doesn’t lose my invitation, again.
Header by: Aglaia Joithe
