Happy new year

Those who know me well know I consider my personal new year to begin on my birthday. Since that was a few weeks ago, I felt about New Year's as I always do, a bit weirded out that everyone considers it such a big deal. It has never felt special to me. Just an excuse to eat things.

On my way to a shendig last night, I pulled my parents' car out of the way of my own on our driveway in the dark last night. My depth perception must've been incredibly off, because I clocked the right side mirror clean off on the pole of our basketball goal. I growled, pulled out, parked the car out on the street and inspected the damage. The mirror looked like it had been scraped off with a knife, except that it still held on desperately to the rest of the car by a single wire. I looked at the glowing lights of my house, imagining my parents' faces, and turned back to the car. I wrestled with the mirror a bit until I managed to sit it on its broken ledge, semi-confident that the wire would keep it from crashing to the ground in case a gust of wind knocked it off its perch.

I drove off angry, glad to be not-in-my-house. I drove the long way. Then I sat outside a stranger's house while I waited for my friend to come to walk in with me, meditating on my social desperation and hating it. I only lasted five minutes in that house full of foreign people. I felt completely alien. That's not a good new year's feeling. I asked my friend permission to abandon her. I drove around New Jersey for a while with an incense stick burning in my car -- my one rebellion -- avoiding home.

I couldn't decide why I was sad. Last night it felt like it was because of the empty streets and knowing the world was tucked into houses full of smiling old friends and family, and I was leaving a party where I was an alien and going back to a home that has begun to feel frustratingly familiar. This morning I think I just had a weird case of the new year's blues. I slept it off. But I would like to get to a point where I am not sad on holidays and generally cheerful most other days.

So I pulled into the driveway, sighed at the dangling mirror, knowing I can't really run away from anything ever. Things I break will stay broken until I fix them. Things I don't like will still exist until I confront them. And I will still be here after a few stoplights and tracks off my favorite CD. I still have to come back home. So I told my dad, and he smiled and said it was alright. Apparently it had already been broken and fixed with superglue before. All I have to do is go out and superglue it back for whoever breaks it next.

Relief flooded me. Not just because I hate car maintenance bureaucracy, but because it was good to receive grace, and to know that God always has some superglue on hand for me and my incense-escapist life and my new year.

Happy new year, everybody.