I’ve never really looked at the new year as a omen of joy. Hoping things will not get worse was the best I could manage. As far as fond memories of the recently departed, or soon to be departing year, I never fell for that either. Normally I was glad it was over and grateful I got out alive.
“Good news, Mr. Clark, we found out who firebombed your house.”
Oh, wonderful.
If you trip and fall it’s awful, but if you don’t even sprain your ankle, fantastic. Wow, you really dodged a bullet there. People your age, (and I’m talking about my age, here) don’t always bounce back from those things. But, you, you hopped right up, spun your head around like a scene from the Exorcist to see if anybody was watching and hobbled off like a character (one of the zombies, precisely) from The Living Dead. Man, talk about your lucky day.
How about that promotion? Well, it went to that bumbling little weasel, Chester, from R and D. He probably washes the CEO’s car. Now he has to travel, and meet with the executives from all over the world. Think of how his clothing budget skyrocketed. Plus, he has to find all the accoutrements to fit a corner office with CinemaScope views of the riverfront and city skyline. All you have to do is dust off the workbench turned desk in the squalid little hovel down by the loading dock. Nobody even knows if you’re there, until something goes wrong, and then the deluge of emails start.
“What happened?”
“Who’s responsible?”
“Heads will roll, you incompetent bastard.”
At least you don’t have to worry about all of that calorie laden food and gourmet coffee in the executive dining room.
Life is complicated.
How about that time your phone broke and the ringer was silent. You didn’t know for months that your sister had a child and you became an uncle (or aunt). You didn’t find out until they had picked a different person to stand at the baptism, and in one missed call you became an outcast. At least you didn’t have to go the reading of your Great Uncle’s will. No worrying about the ridiculous amounts of money he left your brothers and sisters. Nobody is going to come to you for a loan, none of those long lost relatives calling, or worse dropping by with a cheap bottle of wine and a heartbreaking story about surgery and despair. Not that I have anything against cheap wine, I’m kind of a connoisseur, I have a special glove to handle difficult screw tops.
The new year is just another year, New Years Day, just another day. Some good, some bad, most are somewhere in between, if you look long enough. Maybe 2022 will bring fortune, maybe it will bring failure, maybe a little of both. But, if you look at it hard enough, we’ll be ok. You just have to squint your eyes and tilt your head to the side a little, and voila, you’re a success.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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