Ross Gay started his Book of Delights on his birthday. I’ve started this on the first day of the New Year. And it didn’t start as a delight.
I love the freshness each new year brings: change, projects, goals. I steer clear of weight goals, although I always attempt to move more each year. I don’t focus much on financial goals either, although I try to be more mindful of money spent. I’m a list maker, so I easily scrawl a project list with goals and timeframes. Many years I surprise myself with what I accomplish, how I do succeed with New Year’s resolutions, if that is what one could call a goal list (it’s not really a resolution, although I do resolve to complete certain projects). I relish the idea of change, but not always what it entails.
New Year’s eve eve, 2023. Late afternoon. My husband receives a call from his brother. Prime rib, beer, and card games. An impromptu invite that will require a two-hour drive and an overnight stay. I’m not loving the idea. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I’m not overly fond of food. Yet it sounds only vaguely tempting when I consider the alternative New Year’s Eve: sitting at home, with my husband smoking in the garage or Tik Toking on the couch, I in my office, writing or researching, or doing a puzzle like an old person, probably going to bed long before midnight, no fanfare to bring in the New Year (at my age, the midnight kiss on New Year’s no longer holds romantic undertones). Moments like these remind me I shouldn’t be such a recluse, although Emily Dickinson is my hero. Humans are social animals, but by default I don’t like people, and those I do like I can only tolerate in small doses. Yet a little voice is yelling at me from within, “Do Something.”
This was not the Something it was telling me to do.
I left it in my husband’s hands. He said we’ll go. I held back a grimace. In bed that night I imagined the horrors—a car accident or something out of Leave the World Behind, especially when he tells me social media predicted a power grid attack on New Year’s Eve. My college-aged son was smartfully staying home, babysitter to Baby, our pony-sized dog, albeit reluctantly.
We left before 12:30, while I begged for a three o’clock departure. What would we do with all that extra time? Hang out, my husband replied, while the prime rib smoked.
“I’m not going to a bar.”
“We won’t. Probably.”
“We better play games. I’m not just going to sit there.”
“They have lots of games.”
One of these days I’ll learn not to be so trusting and naïve, especially at my age. However, such resolutions have never made my New Year’s list.
Football was on the television when we arrived. Not much to do but sit around and wait, although I enjoy the chatting. I’m already vaguely bored but take delight in the two Corgis. Smoking has to be done in the garage as it is winter. Within two minutes of sitting in a smoke-filled garage, my eyes become puffy. Ten minutes later, my chest starts to ache with a familiar childhood burn, thanks to two chain-smoking parents who puffed away in the house. I’m uncomfortable in a padded folding metal chair and shivering as my slippered feet feel the cold of the cement. Despite the heater that blows hot air beside me, I cannot get warm.
Please tell me this is not how the next eight hours will go.
I sit inside, yet their thermostat is set at 68. I shiver. My eyes remain blurry, irritated from secondhand smoke. I’ve suffered from unexplained fatigue for about three days. I think I’m sleeping fine, but by mid-afternoon I feel as though I need a nap, but I am not a napper (napping is for eighty-year-olds and the infirm). I combat it at home by Doing Something, like the little voice instructs me to do. I might run an errand or just remove the sedentary part of my existence for an hour or so. Now I have no options to come out of it. I have nothing to do, except set the table.
The prime rib is fine, but I don’t care much for beef—particularly red beef that reminds me of Mommie Dearest. The twice-baked potatoes are fluffy piles of cream cheese—I don’t like cream cheese on my baked potatoes. I would have preferred pizza and pop over beef and beer. I hold in a sigh as the clock only reads six. Midnight is still far away.
I join them in the garage after supper but excuse myself after only a few minutes. I cannot stand the smoke or the cold or the uncomfortable ambiance of the garage. Who willingly sits out in a garage anyway?
I retire to the living room. The others return for the start of the Vikings. I chitchat a bit, but everyone acts like they devoured a Thanksgiving meal as slumber sets in. The host snores away in his recliner. My husband is slurring his words. I laugh, but all I wish for is my own couch, my blanket, and Baby.
The Vikings suck. With a score of 30 to 3, everyone returns to the garage during the third quarter. I give up and read my book about River Phoenix. My eyes are still blurry, even with my reading glasses. They’re smoky and tired and all I want to do is go to bed in my own bed. I’m told continually how fun the party is in the garage, but I value my lungs more than a good time. I resign myself to the fact that there will be no card games played.
At 10:45, I exit the living room, and head to bed in the basement.
My husband joins me shortly after midnight. “You should have said you were going to bed.”
I shrug. Did it really matter at that point?
Even in his mildly drunk state, he says as he climbs into bed, “We should have stayed home.” He kisses me. “There’s your New Year’s kiss.”
I am too bored, too tired, and too annoyed with myself to bother with a response.
We leave by eight, skipping breakfast. We arrive home by ten, 22 hours wasted.
This was not how I wanted my first day of 2024 to start.
After dawdling and puzzling (is that a verb for doing a puzzle?), I snap my head on straight. I can do this. Twenty twenty-four doesn’t have to go to shit because of its ruined start.
That’s a problem I have: I always want do-overs. Rewind the clock until I need to start over, then do things differently, better, in a manner that will set me up for success.
I’m in my forties and this is still something I have to train myself to unthink.
I had already started my New Year’s list before we left. I can get back on track, right? I’ve only lost about 4 hours of 2024, maybe only two or three if you subtract morning routine stuff. I can turn this day into Something. “Do Something.” That’s what my mind—or is it my gut?—keeps telling me. It’s a gentle relentlessness, not yet a nag, but more than a friendly reminder.
Do Something.
But what is it exactly that I must do?
My husband crushes my The Amazing Race dreams, although I must admit that I doubt I would have survived a month with only a carry-on to sustain me (I had already thought how I would survive without hot rollers—which I could, really, I could—but what about the lotion and the dry shampoo and the hairspray and foundation and mascara…? I’d never get past airport security). I didn’t want to waste my time on a video and an application anyway. My odds would be slim, if not nonexistent, of becoming a contestant. So that can’t be the Do Something.
I made the most of the rest of New Year’s Day: I finish The Year of Magical Thinking episode of Book Smart, start researching for my next episode (I’m already one week ahead), complete random odds and ends, and then even found time to lament over my only day left before returning to school.
That night, I could find no new show or movie to watch, which depresses me. With four streaming services, nothing appealed to me—I’ve already watched all I desire to and what’s left seems recycled and retold over and over again. I settle for HBO’s decade-old True Detective after remembering the rave reviews. It’s watchable, but I am not eagerly anticipating the next time I plop on the couch to watch it. I know that is not the Something I am supposed to do.
I spend my last day of vacation shopping. I don’t find much, but it’s the art of shopping I enjoy most. I like browsing more than buying, since I rarely purchase much anymore, although I waste way too much money on dog toys. I am lazy in the afternoon. I finish my puzzle and vow to wait until Saturday to start another one, a winter hobby that never distracts me enough from the depressing weather raging outside. I work on Book Smart a bit more, fighting an impending pessimism: is it worth it? Will I find enough viewers to sell books when I get to that point? I try not to think about it—if I do, I will likely think myself out of it all.
So I keep doing: Book Smart episodes, reading, writing, and editing my memoir on my love of family pets and animals. The delight is in the doing. And if I keep doing, eventually I will be done. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work?