I hate New Year’s.
And no, not just because I’d rather paint a terribly ventilated bathroom than attempt to stay awake until midnight only to watch Jenny McCarthy make halting small talk with people who’ve been corralled in pens like dogs for somewhere well north of 13 hours.
Jenny: “So, how excited are you for the New Year?”
Man from Camden, N.J., who earlier urinated in a Dasani water bottle in front of 35 complete strangers: “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I LOVE YOU JENNY!!!!!”
Jenny: “What about you? What are you most looking forward to in 2015?”
Woman from Steubenville, Ohio, who hasn’t eaten since she found that expired granola bar in her purse seven hours ago: “GO BUCKEYESSSSSS!!!!”
Jenny: “We’re all excited down here, Ryan, back to you in the studio!”
I mean, let’s be honest, there’s an overwhelming amount of pressure connected to where, with whom, and how we’re spending the start of yet another three-month period where we all incorrectly date our rent checks.
In my experience, New Year’s, at the bottom of things, is the cultural equivalent of getting the air filter changed in your late model Civic: You do it once a year, you don’t quite remember the specifics from last year’s work, it costs more money than you think it should, and you end up spending the day watching bad TV with strangers.
But this year’s mundane transition from one calendar to another carries a bit more existential heft than one’s past, because in 2015 I’m going to be a father.
And before you jump to the:
WHAT A TERRIBLY MISLEADING INTRODUCTION TO A BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT, WHERE’S THE QUIET SIMPLICITY OF, SAY, A LAND’S-END-WINDBLOWN-SEPIA-TONED-FIELD-OF-WHEAT-CHALKBOARD-PHOTOSHOOT!?
This isn’t a birth announcement.
Mainly because I have a hard time deciding just how to subject myself, my family and my future progeny to the tenuously linked web of faceless Internet “friends” comprised of your mom’s aerobic instructor’s daughter and her opinions about whether or not the hands forming a heart over my partner’s belly-button was “in good taste”.
But, if you’re keeping count, as far as backdoor birth announcements go, I’d give this one a hard 4 on a scale of 0-to-I’m pretty sure your placenta is showing in those maternity suite afterbirth shots.
So, while I might have a great deal of cynical reservations about the way we’re all pretending to enjoy Fergie and the rest of the LA studio crowd —
IN THE NAME OF EVERYTHING, I’M BEGGING YOU, SEACREST, IF YOU SEND US OVER TO THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT “I’VE GOT A FEELING” SONG ONE MORE TIME I WILL HOLD YOU PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS.
— the level of introspection accompanying the drunken crowds anxiously awaiting the metaphorical traverse of a celestial ball of Swarovski crystals representing “THE FUTURE” is at an all time high.
Rather unexpectedly:
I’ve found fear
and baggage
and hopes
and dreams
and plans
and occasional bouts of crippling self-doubt bouncing around inside of me like loose change and lipstick in my grandmother’s purse.
In the midst of this terribly contrived celebration there are times my mind returns to all the years that brought me to this one, about who I was, what I looked like, and even how and with whom I chose to spend them. Because I am both the summation of all these events, and, however confusingly, something entirely independent of them.
Much like my son will be, I suppose.
Whether or not I realize it or am ready to admit it, the practice of acknowledging and celebrating an epochal shift in our individual and collective narratives each year is a fundamental component of existence. From the transition of fall to winter to spring to summer, to the cycles of the moon and the tides, and not to mention the sudden onset of bowl season (I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU, POPEYE’S BAHAMAS BOWL) there is an inborn pull towards experiences that help scrape enough of the bugs off of our windshields so we can make out the way forward, afresh.
In short: at some point or another, we all need a Seacrest.
A seer, who is bold enough to peer into the mysterious unknown of the not-yet in order to let all those following behind to stick around because Imagine Dragons will play the after-party.
Most days, I’m terrified of being a father not because I can’t see what lies ahead, but precisely because what I can see looks an awful lot like my worst self mercilessly unleashed on a tiny human who has no idea why “we don’t sing at the table.”
Or why we always do what dad says but never what dad does.
Or why we don’t leave our Legos in the dimly lit hallway.
Or why we don’t play loudly during Downton Abbey.
But, there are a few days (and I like to believe they’re growing in number) when I’m reminded by the people closest to me that the future, despite its occasional predictability, is not altogether decided.
And, that the baby boy I will tentatively clutch to my chest in a few months as if he was made of stained glass, is a universe-wide invitation for me to be born again and again and again, as if for the very first time.
Because, while my son is my future, he’s also my past.
He’s also a chance for me to reach back into all the places I’ve repressed and ignored, all the places and pains that have overtly and insidiously wounded me, giving me the pronounced limp with which I walk today.
Because, while my son isn’t me, he will probably have splotchy skin and poor eyesight (sorry, bud).
So when I hold him and whisper to him about the beauty of a summer evening sky filled with lightning bugs,
Or when he sits high on my shoulders on our weekly pilgrimages to Neyland each fall,
Or when we listen to Bob Dylan together for the first time and he hates it,
Or when I remind him that the heart of a 13-year-old girl is an unfathomable mystery,
It is a divinely authored opportunity to do the very same thing for the lonely and misunderstood kid in head-gear that still lives inside my own soul and memory.
Because this year I become a father to my son, and to myself.
So may you, in all the ways you resolve to begin the new year, remember, despite who you were, what was or wasn’t done, and who did or didn’t do it, the quiet invitation offered to all of us with every single breath we take:
to be born again and again and again
as if for the very first time.
happy new year.