The New Year’s Eve Curse

New Year’s doesn’t become a very important holiday until one is a bit older. I remember reading my diary from the year that I was eight. I wrote on December 31 that my parents said I was allowed to stay up as late as I could and then on January 1 that I didn’t make it past 10:00pm. But once I hit high school, I was able to stay up late and sleep in late, an area of life in which many teens show talent.

New Year’s Eve was never that great for me in the first place, but I think the Curse really got going when I was seventeen and my then-boyfriend, Steven, dumped me. It was either New Year’s Eve or the day before. Either way, he was The Plan for New Year’s Eve. All my other friends had made plans without me because I was planning on my Big Date {at church, mind you!}). I ended up spending New Year’s Eve taking my friend’s little brother to see Toy Story at the theater.

Throughout college, New Year’s Eve wasn’t particularly bad for me, though I was prone to {a} not have plans, {b} get incredibly lonely, and then {c} torture myself with guilt-inducing resolutions and reflections in my journal. I suppose I can be terribly morbid when I put my mind to it.

When the Millenium came, my parents requested that I stay home, just in case the world fell apart. Of course, since I spent the afternoon chatting online with a friend of mine in Hong Kong {one of the first countries to reach the New Year}, I knew hours and hours in advance that the world would be fine, and so the whole thing was somewhat anti-climactic. I think a part of me actually wanted something bad to happen because it would be interesting.

And then there was the Very Good Year. On December 9, 2000, Si proposed. This means I was engaged on New Year’s Eve, and having a ring on one’s finger and love in one’s heart makes every day seem joyous. Our date that year was simple. I think we went out to dinner, and then strolled along checking out the sites at the street fair in downtown Fullerton. I remember watching the ball drop on TV and toasting the New Year with a glass of sparkling grape juice. Like I said, it was a Good Year.

But the Curse followed me into my marriage. Our first New Year’s Eve as newlyweds, I had terrible morning sickness. I don’t think Si was miserable, but I wasn’t exactly the life of the party. The second year, we were at Si’s dad’s place and I contracted horrible food poisoning at Red Lobster and spent the evening throwing up and leaving Si to care for the baby alone. The third year, I was still in the process of miscarrying our second child {which began on Christmas Eve}, and there were a lot of tears for us both. The fourth year, I warned Rebecca about the Curse, but she didn’t believe me until inviting me over resulted in her having to cancel her own party due to a horrid migraine {it was my fault}. I also still had horrible morning sickness in the fourth year because A. made me miserable until the day she was born. The fifth year was last year, and we all contracted the stomach flu and spent the day throwing up and feeling feverish. Has anyone noticed the vomit trend?

This year is the sixth year, and I am optimistic and predicting a Very Good Year. This is not just because I am guaranteed some morphine sometime that day, but also because we will have a brand new baby in our arms, and nothing could be better than that! In fact, this little child will give us something to celebrate every New Year’s Eve for the rest of our lives. And we really could use the help around here.