Dec 31, 2003

You know, each year as new year's eve comes around the corner, you keep hoping that something will change or something will improve. You go out, have fun, drink lots of alcohol, shout, dance, sweat, push your way through throngs of people, gather your friends together, toast each other, sing, laugh, jump, count down at midnight... and hope to wake up the next morning finding everything has become brighter, more cheerful, happier or just plain different. Expecting a change in the people around you, the environment around you, change inside you. Expecting that you can really start afresh, wipe the slate clean and emerge virginal once more, pure and simple. You have made more resolutions and expected to keep them finally, this year would be THE year. It has to be. With a blind optimism, you rejoiced the passing of one year and accept the coming of the next with forced cheer and alcohol-induced happiness with a group of like-minded friends. Trying to gather strenght and support to step through the threshold of another year through sheer numbers. Or sometimes, just having a wary resignation for the years that had bulldozed through your life and yet, managing to stick a smile on your face and make yourself believe that perhaps, this year it would be a kinder and gentler year. Perhaps it would be. It has to be. Till you find yourself facing another new year's eve. Another new year's party. Another gathering with friends. Another round of drinks. Another round of toasts. Another year.

I wanted none of that this year.