We bought some champagne a week or so ago as we prepared to help bring in the new year Friday night, but then it turned out we never had a New Year's party to go to.
Omicron, you know.
So the champagne is still unopened in the refrigerator, waiting for something to celebrate. And the way I see it, the longer we wait for something to celebrate, the lower the bar for an actual celebration falls. Originally, the champagne was meant to welcome in 2022 – a major event, I guess – but once that didn't happen, we might actually pop the cork for something else. Anything else.
Maybe I'll open the bottle because we finally got our Christmas decorations down. Or maybe because I set a new personal record for my calorie burn that day in the gym. Or maybe because of that dime I found in the Food Lion parking lot. (Finding somebody's lost change is still pretty exciting to me. I think it goes back to my days as the community swimming pool's maintenance boy. I'm the guy who had to pick up the garbage at the end of the day, and occasionally I'd find some loose money among the hot dog and candy wrappers in the grass. Back in 1965, even a quarter was a significant bonus to my meager salary. So getting excited about finding coins on the ground is a life-long conditioned response for me.)
Anyway, I try to approach each new year with a sense of optimism, but it's getting harder and harder to do so. I mean, the pandemic is still here, entering its third year. It seems that no matter how many booster shots we get, Covid is something we're going to have to live with, along with social distancing and masking.
In a 50-50 country, politics seems to have us at an impasse.
I don't know what the answer is. I suppose something could happen that brings us back to our senses, that binds instead of breaks us.
If that happens this year, maybe I'll finally pop the cork.
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