New Year’s Eve

It’s mid-morning on the final day of the year, and you find me perched on the office chair in the home office / junk room that I have lived in for much of the last eighteen months, bathed in the glow of a huge monitor, with Madonna filling the room with “Vogue” – the first track of a random playlist chosen moments ago. A cup of coffee sits adjacent to my left hand, with wisps of steam curling above it in the light of a desk lamp.

In a little over thirteen hours time the clock will lurch forwards and turn twenty one into twenty two. Another arbitrarily measured lap completed around an unremarkable main-sequence star on the western spiral arm of the Milky Way.

The end of a year that was both remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. The absence of any adventures of note has become the calling card of a year many will not wish to repeat. While the introverted part of me has been celebrating “not going out”, the remaining part misses close friends.

Instead of gathering with the world and their dogs to watch the final seconds of the year tick past, we went out for something to eat with close friends the night before last. A couple that live within shouting distance, but that we had not seen outside of an instant message conversation since the spring. Something as simple as sitting opposite another human being for a few hours eating, drinking, telling stories, laughing, reminiscing, and wondering about the future together proved unexpectedly healing.

I imagine today will be spent surfing the mighty internet into the homes of family and friends via webcams, mobile phones, tablets, and laptop computers. Conversations will begin with “you’re on mute!” before pixelated smiles spread across faces, and the world is made small for a time.