Happy New Life!

In almost exactly twenty-four hours, I will perform -- quite literally perform -- my yearly hypocrisy. I will sit on a stage and play the drums in a band for New Year's Eve. When the clock strikes midnight, I will play "Auld Lang Syne" as if I give a flying cupcake. In reality, I have never cared about New Year's Eve, nor about many other markers of time and transition.

Others see the new year as a new beginning and they see a reason to mark graduation from kindergarten through college. But I simply am not, and never have been, moved by these things. I'm not sure why. I do think maybe we should not place so much importance in transitions and time-markers, especially regarding a goal that just about everyone achieves, like high school graduation. (If I ever win a Nobel prize for literature, there may be a party in order . . .)