Sixty Weeks to 60: Days of Auld Lang Syne 

(19 Weeks)

Out with the old, in with the new! The last day of December is day of reflection where we often label a year good or bad, before setting our sights on something new and improved.  With each passing year, I’ve become more reflective – and more sensitive about mindlessly tossing out something simply because it is old.  

Should old acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot
In the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of auld lang syne

The phrase “auld lang syne” is a Scottish phrase that translates to “old long since” or “for the sake of old times”. The song, written by poet Robert Burns in 1788, is about two friends reminiscing over a drink. Burns claimed that he collected the words after listening to an old man on his travels.  I certainly understand the lyrics more now as I celebrate my 60^th New Year. 

New Year’s Eve memories from my youth involved staying up late and then at the strike of midnight banging pots and pans out in front of our house for the whole neighborhood to hear.  During those years, loss and grief were not foreign.  My grandparents all died before I turned 7. A very special Aunt, my dad’s only sibling, died of cancer just before I turned 10. But although I missed my loved ones, those loses didn’t come with the mourning of the humble passage of time I feel today. 

With New Year’s 1975, we started a brief tradition of going away for New Years. That year we celebrated in Disney World which, having opened just four years earlier, was still a relatively new phenomenon and while it was a spectacular place to celebrate, it was still fairly lowkey by today’s standards. The next two years, we celebrated in the Bahamas. 

Celebrations were local again when my dad’s service to the town council meant he was committed to be someplace else on New Year’s morning.  I remember a hotel party with my aunt and uncle in 1980 and being conscious for the first time of a new decade. Today I still look back on 1980 and think “twenty years ago” like time began to stand in 2000, the year my daughter was born. 

My parents hosted a few house parties over the years before we began to go our separate ways. The last New Year’s Eve on which I was still living at home, I was invited to a party a friend of a friend was hosting in a hotel room. I was DD and arrived home before 1 a.m.  I spent the next hour pacing the floor and I will tell you Mom and Dad got quite the talking to when they arrived home well after 2 a.m.! The following year, I got myself invited to a ski weekend in Vermont by a family friend of a guy I was seeing. It began to snow on the way, but we arrived just before midnight. 

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light

                                                “Time Passages” Al Stewart

The years, it seemed, began to move more quickly.  On one last family vacation, my parents and I tried to recreate our New Year’s Disney adventure only to find that the rest of the world had decided it would be fabulous destination for the turning of the calendar too. The park was so crowded that ringing in 1990 there was not at all a pleasant experience.  Then every new year came with bigger expectations. 

There were some good years. And there were some incredible years. Then I broke a mirror and was convinced I bought myself 7 years of bad luck, until it turned into 8.  Between 2006 and 2014, I lost my parents, a close aunt and uncle, and two beloved dogs. I lost jobs. I survived cancer and my husband died by suicide. 

Then we moved and my nest became empty. My daughter’s bestie was killed in a car accident. We lived through a global pandemic. Every day something in the news reminds me of my own grief as I can understand a bit of what survivors’ experience. Getting older is a privilege for sure, but it comes with a lot of weight.

Ringing in 2025, I have much to be grateful for. Love of wonderful partner, a close relationship with my daughter, life-long friendships still going strong, along with new friends here in Illinois.  A job I love and do well. Nice environments in which to live and work. There is a lot to be hopeful about in 2025 and beyond (even if politically, I am engulfed in a feeling of utter doom). I don’t want for much. I am generally an optimist. I am genuinely hopeful.  I am also, with each passing year, more aware of the passage of time, and its finality.   

That realization isn’t going to change how I will ring in the new year – which has typically become a message to my family in Ireland and the UK at the stoke of 6 p.m. (CST), a multi-course dinner at home, watching the ball drop-in Times Square at 11 p.m. (CST), and a kiss from my special someone (Kurt) and a toast with Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. Maybe if we’re feeling ambitious, we’ll stay up for the countdown in Central Standard Time. 

Being aware of the passage of time, and how little of it may be left to share with those most important to me, does change how I live and appreciate each day.  Maybe I will start banging pots and pans at midnight to celebrate each new day. 

There’s a time that I remember when I never felt so lost
When I felt all of the hatred was too powerful to stop (ooh, yeah)
Now my heart feel like an ember and it’s lighting up the dark
I’ll carry these torches for ya that you know I’ll never drop, yeah

Everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody hurts someday, ayy ayy
But everything gon’ be alright
Go and raise a glass and say, ayy

Here’s to the ones that we got (oh)
Cheers to the wish you were here, but you’re not’

Cause the drinks bring back all the memories
Of everything we’ve been through (no, no)
Toast to the ones here today (ayy)
Toast to the ones that we lost on the way

“Memories” Maroon 5

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Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.