The small apple tree in my back yard still has a few apples clinging to their branches months after they should have fallen. They’re not alive anymore, but they missed the memo that the season has turned to winter and they refuse to give up and just fall.
The New Year is always marked by a difficult tension. We’re encouraged to remember and celebrate the highlights of the year we’re leaving, but we’re also told to look forward to whatever the new year has to offer. I’ve seen and skimmed through dozens of best-of-2021 lists covering music, television, movies, news, action figures, etc. over the last month. It’s been fun revisiting a lot of it – especially the music.
2022 is a new blank slate full of possibility and potential, but I don’t know how much I’m actually looking forward to it. Maybe it’s a “the devil you know is better than the one you don’t” kind of situation. As difficult as 2021 was (COVID persisted, obviously, and I just found out that Betty White died and what the hell, 2021?), I did enjoy a lot of it. I got a new job that’s more stable and fulfilling – in just about every way – than anything I’ve done recently. The new James Bond and Spider-Man films were phenomenal. Succession continues to raise the bar on writing and acting in television. Big Red Machine released an album that stuck with me and kept me calm when my head was swirling in chaos. Taylor Swift released a 10-minute version of her best song. I went to Arches and New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Florida, and those were incredible trips full of sights and tastes that will stay with me and make me smile for years.
But I’m still feeling the end-of-year doldrums. There are a lot of weighty and fancified names for this feeling: ennui, Weltschmerz, languor, melancholy, wistfulness, listlessness. And I honestly don’t know where it’s coming from this year. I keep finding myself holding onto things (habits, people, feelings) I should let go of and can’t. I’m struggling to find ways to navigate places (both virtual and real) where I don’t feel I belong. There’s a nagging longing and hesitance I can’t seem to shake. I feel stuck, but I can’t just get the fuck up and move.
There’s a lot to look forward to next year. A new Pinegrove album and tour. The next Doctor Strange movie. The next wave of Mythic Legions. I’ll probably go on a few great trips and see things I’ve never seen before. I’ll have a good chunk of a long-overdue book written by this time next year. My kids will do things that surprise and amaze me. There’s a fresh start ahead full of dozens of things that will add meaningful layers to a life I’m lucky to be living.
But what do I do if I just don’t want to do it all again? What if I just want to sit here and think for a while and make my peace with what I'm expected to leave behind? What if I can't (and maybe don't want to) shake the ambivalence of facing a new year?
When the sun sets tonight, I guess that will solve it. The calendar will turn over at midnight, whether I want it to or not. There’s a snowstorm forming west of here, and it’s supposed to arrive tomorrow morning. A blanket of snow is a tangible blank slate – an appropriate way to approach the empty canvas of a new year.
But I imagine the apples on the tree out back will still be hanging on, resisting the urge to let go – even with snow falling all around. And I suppose I will, too.
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