New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday. It is a day of new beginnings, fresh starts, and leaving bad things behind (at least in theory.). New Year's Eve is a holiday with almost no obligation--you can spend it with the people you choose, not the family you were born into. There is no wrong way to celebrate, and you can do whatever you see fit. It is all about fun. Tere are no presents to buy or great aunts whose questions you need to artfully avoid. It is a young person's dream. It is a great day, and up until this year, it was also my anniversary.
January 1st, 2012 would have been our ten year anniversary. I started dating my long term boyfriend on what was technically New Year's Day in 2002. In the middle of the night, he came to my house and joined in on the party that was going on. We kissed in a chair in my parents' basement, and we were basically together since. Almost ten years, five years of long distance, two apartments, five roommates, and all the experiences of growing up together. Our story ended as quietly as we began, and we went our separate ways earlier this year.
This New Year's Eve would have been our tenth anniversary. It also should have been the weekend we were getting married. We had talked vaguely of a New Year's Eve wedding, figuring a Saturday night and our tenth anniversary would be a great time to make the whole thing official. It was just an idea, but it was the first real idea we had about our future. Even though last January it became clear that marriage was not where we were headed, our New Year's Eve wedding still existed in my mind. As someone who has dreamed of getting married for years, it was sad to see it pass.
Even though it is sad to watch a potential wedding date come and go, as we passed through yesterday and today, I found that I was almost happy. I am really glad we aren't getting married. We weren't right and we weren't happy, and rather than doing what was expected of us and taking the next step, we chose to go our separate ways. Of course it is sad that my relationship ended, but going through a divorce would have been far worse.
I am sad, but also happy. Happy to know that there is a lot more out there. Happy because I hope each of us finds happiness elsewhere. Happy because even though I know I have "never been wed", I know that day is still ahead of me. I can go back to loving weddings for weddings' sake and there not being stakes or implications behind a color pattern or a motif.
I should have been leaving on my honeymoon tomorrow. Instead, I will be walking my college friend to the train and going to trivia. And honestly, I think that's great.
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