From the Elliptical: Special New Year’s Edition
January 1st, 2007
I pedaled on the elliptical alone the other day. Angela was traveling back from Erie, and Tay was out gathering supplies for our New Year’s Eve party. Forgetting to charge my iPod ahead of time, I was left with only my thoughts for 40 minutes. And in the final hours of 2006, I found myself focused on what a new year means.
Of course, one of the first thoughts I had was about resolutions. Would I make any this year? Then I realized that I make the SAME damn resolution every year: to commit to exercising. This year, for the first time in my life, I’ve made it happen. Chalk one up to progress.
On Christmas Eve my family played a game. Twenty-six pieces of paper were put in a bowl, each with a year written on it starting with 1980 (the earliest Tay can remember). We took turns drawing, and then had to share something about the year we got. It could be a small moment or a huge event. Something funny, sad or meaningful. Something that would be a good story.
It was hard for us to remember really specific moments within a year. We all tended to focus on a big event, like “I moved to Boston”. Or in some cases it became a year in review: “I switched jobs, started skiing and went to Italy.” The small moments blend together, especially the older we get. Oddly, the farther back the year, the easier it was to remember and share a smaller moment. I guess that’s just how we remember our childhood - unwrapping a special gift on our birthday, what we wore on the first day of school, who we sat behind in third grade class. Not years, just little pictures.
I drew 1985, the year I started high school. The first thing I remembered was walking to high school for orientation day with my best friend Jessie. We were both nervous, but she made me laugh the whole way there. Jessie died in 1994. Even the happy memories often remind us of what we’ve lost. People we loved who are no longer in our lives. Olde acquaintance, be forgot. And I suppose each year after a loss is another milestone in the healing of our grief.
When 2001 was drawn, it was hard for any of us to recall anything except 9/11 that year. We knew exactly where we were, what we were doing, and who we called first. And for all of us, 2002 represented a time, after the election of You Know Who, when this country took a devastating turn. And as much as YKW likes to wish it so, I can’t imagine that a decade from now I’ll remember 2006 as the year Saddam Hussein was executed. Likely I will recall it as the year that the majority of Americans finally woke up to the inanity of this war and made their feelings known during mid-term elections.
Leaving Cape Cod the day after Christmas, I sat next to The Betrothed on the bus to Boston. As we watched the bare trees beside the highway move by in a blur, we reminisced about the past year. Vacations, good meals, house projects, career changes, health challenges…I was only halfway through reciting this list of things that defined our year when The Betrothed interrupted. He just looked at me and said “I love you.”
My eyes welled up, and he put his hand over mine, and I could feel his chin on the top of my head when I leaned into his shoulder. I knew I would never have to try to remember that moment, because it’s always there.
And I think that’s what he was trying to say. Our year, our 2006, wasn’t the list of events. It was us - living it together. The list of events will change, some years more than others. Life will be hard, and wonderful. Some things we will remember, and others we will forget.
So maybe the calendar change just marks a renewed commitment to keep moving, alongside all the people I love. On the bus, definitely on the elliptical, and on my increasingly strong two legs.
Happy New Year.
This is lovely and touching and poignant.
I cannot believe you finished it *and* threw an amazing party. I’m glad that I get to keep moving with you by my side.
Happy New Year.
1995: Randy stages a straight jacket escape in your apartment. To no one but Randy’s surprise, this prevents him from hooking up with any women that night.
Good one J.
So good. Love the game, too. Who’s idea was the game? I’d be terrible at it because new year’s is so rarely about looking back for me. I’m always so excited about the opportunity for starting fresh with a new year. Ever the Libra, I think I’ll try to balance out my next new year’s and spend a little more time looking back. How’s that for a new year’s resolution.
Ok, how sweet is the betrothed?
ok, so now you made my eyes well up and here i am at my miserable job with my husbands miserable cousin sitting across from me. ugh. i really want to cry.
HI…Just wanted to say that I have loved reading your entries…Corrine passed on the website after my mom saw you on PBS…One of my new year’s resolutions, that I keep SO well, is to stay in better touch with important people, that being said, when this fell across my lap, I had to reach out and say hello…What a wonderful life you have made for yourself, I am VERY happy for you…Love ya, Sierra
Funny you picked 1985 because I was just telling fellow moms at my kid’s school that there is a hit song with the pre-teen age kids now called 1985- I don’t know if it is supposed to cater to that audience, but when my girl get to pick the radio station she picks “Radio Disney” and that is the only place I have heard the song- here is a sample:
Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before nirvana There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she’s uncool
‘Cause she’s still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985
Woo Hoo Hooooo!
(1985)
Woo Hoo Hooooo!
She’s seen all the classics
She knows every line
“Breakfast Club”, “Pretty In Pink”
Even “St. Elmo’s Fire”
She rocked out to Wham!
Not a big Limp Bizkit fan
Thought she’d get a hand
On a member of Duran Duran
My girl was pretty impressed I knew everything the song talks about.
I also started high-school that year. It was good for me because it got me out of the hellish jr high stage.
Oh yeah- I am totally stealing that game.