The Countdown

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Cheer is contagious. As everyone shouts, "HAPPY NEW YEAR!! WOOOO!" One group lights a sparkler there and another one somewhere else and soon the entire park is filled with sparklers and smoke.

I found myself walking out of the pavillion we were camped in onto the grass and towards the beach, breathing in the air of the new year and filling my lungs with sparklers smoke that might have reduced my lifespan by at least a year.

Ships that were out at sea fired their flares into the sky and this cheered me up. Horns were blasted from some other ships to join in the celebration as well.

A couple was on a picnic mat at the field I was walking on and the man was kneeling in front of the sitting lady. "I promise I will love you even deeper and take care of you in the new year..."

A police car goes by with its red and blue blinkers as if it wanted to blend into the celebrations as well.

The full moon was up in the sky. It was the blue moon. Its not exactly blue, but its the blue moon because its the second full moon of the month, and this phenomenon happens only once in a blue moon, well, literally.

I return to the candle-lit pavillion to find people waxing the floor with their little outbursts of creativity. "Ah, vandalism, but who cares, its the new year, you can do anything because everybody is so happy."

Its funny, how we are always so caught up with countdowns. Its almost as if we expect something big to happen at the end of the "3, 2 ,1". Like maybe an asteroid will fall through the sky, or the earth will break open, or Jesus Christ will appear out of nowhere, or just something incredible. Of course, nothing big ever happened so its made up by firing some fireworks or lighting some sparklers.

Its almost as if we expect some change to happen in our body or mind, maybe we will be enlightened, maybe we will lose some pounds, gain some mass somewhere where we want it. I check myself- nope.

It never happens. Nothing ever happens. At the end of the "3, 2, 1" all that happened is just time passed. We sing songs, we dance, we congratulate each other, we shake each other's hands, and then we sit down and smile at each other. 21 years I have been on this planet and such traditions still remain.

We stay up for as long as our bodies can take it, we play games under the moonlit sky, we chat, we eat snacks, we drink tea, we try to make this moment last for as long as we physically can without the risk of falling asleep while driving home. We try not to sleep until we really need to. All of us know, deep in our hearts, that if we fall asleep and when we wake up, its just going to be another day in another year.

But we have to go. We have to go sleep and face the next day. As we pack up our stuff, it was already near 4am. A little club nearby was still blasting music and people are still dancing, refusing the fact that its time to go back to living our lives. "I've got a feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night... that tonight..."

The cheer was wearing off all of us. The drive home was quiet. We were all too tired to make any interesting conversations and were more interested in looking out for the traffic and getting home safely instead. We had to blast the music from the radio just to keep ourselves awake for the long drive from the east end to the west.

I put myself to sleep when I reached home, not sure if the next day will ever come with everyone wishing that it won't.

When I woke up to the daylight shining into my room, I stumbled into my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.

"Here we go again... ah, happy 2010"