Happy New Year 2010..

So it's the end of the year already.

I don't know about you, but I've been hearing the same thing from everyone around me. The year 2009 seems to have flown by in the blink of an eye. And before you know it, December is already coming to an end.

This first decade of this millennium is the first decade in which I am able to recall everything that I did in my life. Born smack in the middle of the 1980s, I hardly remember anything from that era. The 1990s were partly remembered because I was just entering my teens then. This decade of 2000~2010 will be the first (and hopefully not the only) decade in which I am able to recall things as an (almost) adult.

Do you remember the millennium? Where were you as the clock stroke of midnight? I was sitting out in a quite field with just one other person next to me. We sat there for hours, talking about love, life, society, Armageddon, the Backstreet Boys... but mostly about love.. or at least love as any other 15 year old would see it. She was my cousin, and at that time, the closest person I had whom I could share everything with. There was no countdown, there was no excited anticipation of the new year. We just talked and talked.. and when we finally saw fireworks in the sky and people cheering on the streets and in their houses, the moment had passed. I just turn to look at her, smiled and said "Happy New Millennium cuz..." That was it. That as how I ushered in the new year.

And you know what? It remains my favourite way of ushering any new year. I don't want to be standing amongst a crowd of a hundred other people. Counting 10, 9, 8, 7........ I want to be sitting quietly somewhere overlooking either the skyline, or an open field or a hill, something like that. I want it to be a quiet place. And I want to be with just one person... or the most two or three.

I decided that this year, if I cannot be with the person(s) that matters to me at the stroke of midnight, I don't want to be with anybody at all. I will drive out and away from friends whom I love to bits but hardly know anything about me, or my heart. I will search for the quietest spot I can find around town, hopefully either up on a hill, or overlooking a quiet field..... and try to make some sort of sense of the things that are going in my life.

I want to look up at the sky and ask God if he really is this mischievous little kid that's holding a magnifying glass, burning the tiny little ants he created just for the fun of it. I'll look up and ask God why is it that when he created life, he had to dish it with huge servings of irony. And why is it that for so many people, love starts with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends with a teardrop? Why did God make sacrifice the ultimate expression of love? Why does love have to inevitably come also with pain? Couldn't he have made a snuggle and a kiss the ultimate expression of love? Cuz that sure as hell  seems much more simple and pleasant. Maybe when God was putting in the ingredients that made up love, he decided to drop in a whole bunch of ginseng root. But really God, couldn't you just have put in a spoon of Scott's Emulsion?

I'm putting in my Happy New Year wishes early. So, Happy New Year my friend. Three things I wish upon you as we usher in the coming of a new year; good health, happiness......but above all else, love in its every sense... (even if there is essence of ginseng in it).

Cheers.