by Rachel D.
It never becomes the epic you expect. There is no clean break between you and the person you are to become- just the same rooms, the same lighting, the same yourself in a kitchen at 11:58 on New Year’s Eve trying to decide if being reinvented should have been more noticeable than this.
Fireworks fracture the night sky in irregular bursts from beyond your window, as if time can be shocked into something else by sudden bright bangs. Inside the house, a TV tells you with the unnatural cheeriness only technology can emit that it’s the ten, nine, eight in the countdown. You stare at the numbers, as you stare at elevator numbers, always anticipating a change that should happen, something definitive, that you always find yourself waiting for.
When midnight rolls around, nothing crashes, nothing re-sorts. The clock marches on, as if it had known it was supposed to all along, without needing an abrupt edge.
And you think about the last twelve months, about all the people you were during those 365 days- the one who tried to wake up early every day, the one who believed in everything very strongly for short stretches, the one who thought moving into new body of self would be something you felt with certainty in all physical cells. Instead, here you are, infinitesimally older in a subtle way, carrying the same unresolved issues that refused to settle down into facts.
You hear shouts of feigned delight, from the house down the street that insists loudness equates to meaning, and watch the moving patterns of reflected light slide across your window, Your own face appearing over far-off flares. And you understand that New Year’s Eve is not about the beginning of anything, but an undeniable testament to the continued, unapologetic forward momentum of time, an ignoring of all you’d hoped would change before this year officially started.
By the time you are back at your window with something warm in your hands and the streets have cleared, the night has returned to its familiar, ordinary quietude. The air feels cooler, or maybe you’re just finally aware it is, now that the fireworks and champagne has faded and no new beginning had occurred.
You whisper a promise-nothing that would be considered a New Year’s resolution, not even for a fleeting moment, and far too quiet and flimsy to possibly be broken by any public or private judgment.
And as the city finally stills and assumes its accustomed posture, you come to the conclusion that what change most often looks like is not arrival or revelation, but rather the steady decision to keep moving, into a year that had already gone on with or without your consent.
Art courtesy of Fahran’s Studio, Los Angeles
About the Author
Rachel writes stories filled with soup, sunshine, and big feelings.