By David Himmel

I wonder how love will bloom this New Year’s Eve. I wonder what kind of chaos will ensnarl itself in this year’s revelries. The hours leading up to the countdown and those first few fleshy pink hours of 2023 are critical. Critical in our human minds, anyway—Time and Space cannot care. And I wonder which way those hours will go and for whom and what it will eventually mean.

I wonder because I’m too settled in my domestic port to actually concern myself with the weather out there beyond the harbor.

New Year’s Eve is the Big Dance. The opportunity to start fresh, solidify one’s standing in the social cesspool of love and hate. To attend an event is key. A house party is nice but better when black tie is optional. A bar party will do and is, perhaps, more suited for the singles looking to score or find a new affection for the coming year. The crowded nature of the New Year’s Eve bar party encourages sporadic and thoughtless hookups. Desperate, even, as the clock creeps closer to midnight. We need someone to kiss. It’s part of the human condition.

To score a snog as the bell tolls twelve is a win for the year that was, the year that will be, for one’s ego, and for one’s needy heart. Will new love grow? Will this kiss be the relationship that defines the year, or years, to come? Does it lock in place a budding relationship as something more? Or will it just be a small token, a parting gift for playing along, for venturing out with your heart on your best sleeves? The options are endless because humans are complicated idiots. Lizard brains at best when it comes to matters of the heart and libido.

And, of course, it could all go south. The booze could get the wheel and drive the night straight into a ditch. The kiss might not land—sloppy, reeking of onions and bile. What fights may break out? What relationships start as fireworks only to end as the Hindenburg? What wonderful memories are forever lost to the blackout?

This new year, this past year, it’s arbitrary. As arbitrary as our economy. And yet, because we all agree to it, it becomes logical, systemic, necessary. We need these new years to create new selves, to celebrate, move on from, look forward to, and measure distance—a radius from our present in either direction. This New Year’s Eve is no different than any given eve other than this one carries all the weight of opportunity and wonder.

I don’t have to wonder this year. Not on matters of the heart. Not much anyway. Like I said, I’m settled nicely into my domestic port. I’m sure to get a kiss at midnight, as long as we’re still awake. And those two kids of mine will help stave off the chance of me letting the drunkard get the wheel for too long. So, I don’t need to wonder about me and my heart. But it’s a wonderful thing to wonder about all those other hearts out there.