New Year’s Eve With My Best Friend

This is my column in today’s Greenville News.  Official link not up yet at the News website, but I’ll post it when I can.

I remember being an adolescent, ringing in the New Year with my family. My mother a nurse, and my father a pastor, we just weren’t big ‘party people.’ Their mantra (which is now mine) was ‘nothing good happens after midnight!’ (I have plenty of anecdotal doctor stories to back up that assertion, by the way.)
We’d shoot some illegal fireworks off, or fire a gun from the back porch at midnight, and we’d eat some shrimp as the ball dropped in far-off, sparkling, exciting NYC. Then mom and dad usually fell asleep early and I wished for something to do. They were busy folks, and reasonably tired, so New Year’s Eve wasn’t much different from any other night. My wife’s childhood memories were similar, as her parents worked hard and rested when they could. Furthermore, those were the ‘dark ages’ when the Internet wasn’t part of life, and communications to the rest of the kid world were restricted to the house phone and the postal service. (Can you imagine?)
So it was no surprise that Jan and I celebrated a remarkable event on December 31st. For the first time in 22 years, we spent New Year’s Eve together… with nobody else. No kids, no relatives, no friends. Zero.
We aren’t opposed to enjoying the holiday, mind you. Over the years of our dating and marriage we’ve had lots of wonderful New Year’s Eve celebrations, from small affairs with friends to dress-up evenings in crowded restaurants.
We’ve had many parties at our house on the hill, with plenty of food and fireworks, bonfires and chaos. We’ve had church youth group events where dozens of young people played capture the flag in the freezing cold, the night illuminated only by flashlights, after which shivering teens (and leaders) warmed themselves by the fire and passed out on the floor from fatigue.
Most years the attendees were simply bunches of our kids’ friends and our own, along with as many family as possible, whom we promised that the fun and laughter would outweigh the danger of stray bottle rockets, brush fires or jackets set on fire by sparklers.
But this year, all of our ‘children’ from ages 15 through 22 (not so much children now), had things to do, people to see and places to go. Based on our own experience as young people, we could hardly blame them. And rather than try to make them feel guilty, rather than be stuck on some dead-end, potentially toxic nostalgia, we said ‘be careful and have fun! Keep us posted where you are and what you’re doing!’
I had worked all day in the ER and arrived home, where Jan had a yummy meal waiting. I took dinner to our room where we settled in for a very, very uneventful evening. Good Clemson parents, we periodically paid attention to the score of the Clemson-OSU game. Good former homeschool parents and life-long nerds, we watched Tolkien’s Return of the King on TV. We weren’t cold, nobody around us was intoxicated, we didn’t have to drive anywhere and the wait for food was non-existent.
I seem to recall learning that Clemson had won, and the dark forces were pouring out of the gates of Mordor, right as I said, ‘I love you baby! Happy New Year!’ At that point the dark forces of fatigue enveloped me and I was out around 11:30. Jan, with more fortitude than I, stayed awake until after midnight.
Emotions are funny things. And we humans can keep lots of competing emotions in constant tension together. That night, even as we missed our children and thought back on all the beautiful, laughter-filled evenings of the past, we were buoyed up by the deep, underlying love and friendship that we have had since our first date almost 33 years ago. We rang out the old, and rang in the new together, with joy and contentment.
Parents everywhere should try to remember that as wonderful as our kids are, and as delightful it is to spent time with them and others, our marriages are the deep, holy bond that will remain, and see us to the end. We know there will be parties again. But party or not, the best New Year’s Eve, the best day, the best night, the best life, is the one we spend together.
How do the vows go? In sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, at parties or at home with only you? I do. Always.