Episode 81: Out With The Old

Episode 81: Out With The Old

Excerpts from "The Petty Chronicles" every Monday

I love rituals. Pomp and circumstance are fine by me. So as I head into this New Year, amidst the fireworks, parades and glittering crowds, I am girding my loins for all the possibilities it may bring. New Years resolutions are not really my speed as I truly believe they’re for sissies and fools. Waiting for a calendar date to make important changes in your life and then believing you will follow through seems like the very portal to madness, and I don’t need much of a shove.

But there is one ritual I can’t do without and that is the New Years Eve toast, when I hoist my glass of champagne high into the air, counting down the last 10 seconds of it all, toasting out the old and toasting in the new with the certainty that only a fresh start can bring.

I remember practicing this ritual the first New Years Eve after my divorce and the list of things I wanted to toast out were freakishly large, compared to the modest hopes I had for the future without him. As I toasted out an item on the laundry list of crap that had to go - the disappointment, frustration and pain - I’d take a voluminous sip of champagne and ready my glass once more. I’ve got to tell you that the bubbly was flowing quite fast and I probably could have drunk a case of the stuff had I had enough in the fridge. But at last, the toasting out was complete and I began to toast in the new: the lightness and brightness, the utter possibility of life which might become tangible and real.

A few New Years eves have come and gone since then and I’m so glad to be on my own. But I do have to say that I’m finally ready for love to find its way to me again, now that I’ve had time to heal. And as I lift my glass to the skies, it still feels good to shoo away the past, put it in its place and have done with it. The toasts out are much shorter than they once were and the toasts in are still all about hope and standing here at the precipice of another New Year, ready to dive in and swim fast.

Check out new episodes of The Petty Chronicles every Monday.

Click the following to learn about The Petty Chronicles and its author, Rachel Gladstone