New and Fresh Tides
The place I spent last year’s New Year’s Eve was at the bottom of a ski hill. The glamorous night unraveled at a private event hosted in a bar on the bottom of Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The nostalgic and youthful atmosphere was the result of an evening filled with old high school friends and people from my hometown I hadn’t seen or had barely seen since after graduation. We danced, shared drinks, and listened to music and people’s laughter from across the bar. Small disposable cameras passed through the hands of the attendees, in hopes of capturing some clarity to help piece together the night’s events and our foggy memories in the morning. Blinding flashes shot into the darkened crowd, as lips spread into white smiles and shoulders met shoulders. Once the hours had dwindled away, it was time to say goodbye to our 2019 selves and hello to the unknown 2020. Our bodies pressed together tightly on the dance floor as we stared at the tv screen, watching the numbers slowly countdown. Our cheeks flushed deeper and our voices heightened with excitement.
We had no clue what was going to happen during the year that we were all so excitedly counting down the second’s till. I wonder if we had known the outcome of 2020, would our excitement have been the same? The year ahead was not anything we could ever have prepared ourselves for. Yet, amongst the shiny dresses and heavily cologned men, we counted down from ten with spirit on our breath.
Now it’s almost a year later. Christmas is fast approaching, a time ideally spent enjoying the company of loved ones and those who you might not often get to see. Rather, COVID and the year it claimed, has modified that plan. Christmas this year will be spent, for many of us, through computer screens and phone calls instead of face-to-face interaction. It will be about scheduling call times and remembering to factor in different time zones. Don’t get me wrong, Christmas will still be Christmas. It will just be unique and makeshift, similar to the past year we have just endured. As the Christmas spirit warms our homes and the tree’s light illuminate our living rooms, it’s hard not to think about the good things that have come out of the past year. Yes, it was hell for many, we have all heard the stories. Men and women embark on their normal days but soon realize that their elderly parents have lost the fight against COVID-19, or someone with underlying health issues wakes up one morning feeling a bit unwell, soon later testing positive and then passing away in the following weeks. But aside from the horrors, this year has also been the catalyst for steps forwards in the right direction. A new President of the United States and a huge civil rights movement in America. Those are just two of the events that occurred during 2020 to be written in the history books that will hopefully propel us forwards to a place of freedom and equality for all.
This New Years' Eve as we finally leave 2020 in our past, I won’t find myself at the bottom of the ski hill in a bar surrounded by people so close that today I’d be widely uncomfortable. Such an evening is now a far-off luxury that I hope to find in the year before us or if not then, maybe a few more down the line. Most likely, similar to me, many people around the world have no glamorous New Year’s Eve plans. No getting all dressed up so the New Year can meet you at your best or no worrying about getting cabs at the end of the night as you freeze your buns off in the snow. Rather, it’s a quarantine New Year’s. What could be more fitting? This is hopefully our first and last, so why not embrace it for what it is? We have lived through a major chapter in history, something many of us will be telling our children and grandchildren about. Why not make your New Year’s Eve something to remember as opposed to feeling upset about not being able to go out to an overcrowded bar and living a night you most likely won’t remember in the morning? Spend the night at home in your bubble and have a fun and careful evening. If you want it to be, it can be a fun and optimistic night as we reach our hands into 2021 and pray that what we grasp isn’t only a prolongation of what we have all just endured, but new and fresh tides that have come to wash us clean of 2020.