December 31st, 2004
"Hmm ... last day of the year ... hmm ... "
Brian sighs, yawns, then shifts in his chair. He starts to sigh again, but catches himself. It is just a bad habit, he knows; his little noises and twitches are meaningless, except that people might notice them and think he's nervous. He's seen himself on video and film several times, and though he is long past being shocked and embarrassed at some of the mannerisms and movements he makes, he still looks at them with an appraising eye.
'Which of these can I change? What does that look like to someone else? When I speak this way, am I intimidating people or am I just opening myself up to friction with others? And how about that: Will that be funny or tiresome?'
He doesn't hang off the thoughts and feelings of others anymore, of course. He knows that it is a waste of life ... and he is not walking around in a frenzy of self-hatred like some teenager turned down for a date to the prom by a member of the opposite sex ... no, he is just curious. Just interested in how he really looks and acts around other people.
And--Lord ha'mercy--he is definitely not making a New Year's Resolution! As a younger man he often prided himself on telling all who would listen that the only Resolution he made at New Years that stuck was the one to never make another Resolution. He thought it was clever and so repeated it often, until he realised that nobody cared; they all worried about their own lives and their own Resolutions.
'So ... fine, then,' he thinks to himself. 'There is nothing cathartic in summing up a year, especially since I've spent an entire year more-or-less documenting it as it went along. After all, I didn't blot it all out as it occurred. Not like other years ... '
'Not like other people.'
He decides that it is unfair to both him and his ex-wife. Baggage. Someone who is ten years in his past but threatens to warp the viewscreen of his present mind with her emails and phone calls, if he lets her.
So he thinks of his new wife. They barely quarrel. First time, in fact, since before the Summer. But he hates quarrelling; it makes him feel so lonely. He admires his new wife because she doesn't think everything is all about her. He respects her a lot. So why were they wading through the heavy silences and unspoken swamp of hard feelings last night? Was he right to blurt, "I'm sorry for my words" as the first thing off his lips only two seconds after awaking this morning?
'Over-apologize and you're just making it worse, bub,' he reminds himself.
He sips his luke-warm tea, answers his phone, speaks to a friend for two minutes. He listens to his words:
"Yeah, sure. We can grab a pint at the Lynwood ... yeah, or the Raven ... it's nicer, sure, but it might be crowded. 'K, man, see ya tonight ... take it easy ..."
'Is that really me talking? Sounds like a stranger.'
Then he thinks to himself: 'Nobody is really interested in all the minutiae of my life over the year. I'm not interested in theirs, after all ... what makes me think I'm so special?'
'Naw, I've got it. I walk around like everyone else feeling and experiencing the same things they do. Then I have the same emotional responses that they do. I'm no different there. But then I sit down and think them through, I write them down, I process them--sometimes publicly where all who are interested can see them. My friends don't do that. My family may, but they don't chew with their mouths open ... yes, I suppose that is what makes me think I am so special ...'
Downs the last of his tea, now stone cold. Checks his watch, calculates the number of hours until the "New" Year. And, in spite of himself, sighs.