New Year
Wednesday 3rd January 2001
Now the holiday is over. Festivities behind us with both their highs and lows. Tomorrow I return to work. Most of us have already done so and as yet the new year seems hardly distinguishable from the old unless it be by different pictures on the calendar and remembering to write a new date on cheques.
That times flies, and flies faster as we age, is a commonplace hardly worth repeating. But it is true and it begins to scare me slightly. A year ago I was sitting here thinking much the same thoughts and in between then and now hardly any gap seems to exist. More than ever before I wonder where the year has gone. What did I do with the last year of the second millennium?
Traveled, albeit in close set bounds. Three times to Paris and four to enjoy the hospitality of Greg and his family in Normandy. Pride and the Techno Parade plus a weekend just for myself. The Juliette concert, Greg's birthday, another party weekend and the apple harvest. Another year and I haven't returned to the Midi, to Venice, Amsterdam or Sicily as I keep promising myself that I will. Or to Egypt, or the Americas or so many other places. This year, or next, or the one after that.
I've bought a new stove and, later, a house for it. And I'm more skint than I have been for ages. Given a few dinners, not enough. A few parties. Discovered a couple of restaurants worth revisiting. Seen some plays, too few of those.
It has, despite its apparent brevity, been a personally eventful year. Possibly the most important thing has been discovering how true a friend can be. That, I hope, will stay with me for the rest of my life. I have spent months being wrung by emotions that at the time one really wished were not yet which in hindsight - and I think I can begin to speak of hindsight in this context - had their compensatory moments. Whether the moments balance the months I remain uncertain.
What of the next one? Much will be if not the same then at least of a pattern. I like this, the security. But I hope that some will be different, radically so perhaps. Hey, I've got the hair cut, the leathers and the boots. Watch out world!
So the year will have places and times for old friends and new, old loves and new, old haunts and new.
A new year and a new year's resolution: let us live it well.
Matthew
