Time, ball drops, and midnight runs in the dark

We slid into a parking space at seven minutes til midnight. Made it in time, but just barely. 

The adjacent street was dark and quiet. Few drivers were out at this hour, most of them probably busy enjoying a raucous New Year’s Eve celebration or a snooze on the couch.

Jonah unwound his six-foot-something frame from the passenger seat and stood on the pavement, pulling on thin gloves and a hat. It was cold enough for a sweatshirt, he decided, his legs bare beneath his running shorts in the frosty late-night air.

He slipped on the lighted running vest I'd bought him for Christmas, then flipped me a quick wave and was gone, trotting down the silent sidewalk.

After months of increasing dedication to the sport of running, Jonah had decided he wanted to mark the end of 2023 ― a tumultuous, often uncertain, sometimes heartbreaking year in our household ― by running into the new year. 

Being strictly accurate, it wasn’t the new year yet. Our family had traveled a few hours south to visit my mother-in-law, who lives in a different time zone. There in the cold Central Illinois night, it was only 11 p.m. But at home in Michigan, the clock was striking midnight as Jonah trotted along the sidewalk, thinking about what was behind and what was yet to come.

At least, that’s what I imagine he was thinking about. He didn’t tell me what he wanted to ponder as he ran into the new year, and I didn’t ask. It was enough to know that the son I love so much, for whom I ached as he endured a difficult transition to a new home, was ready to greet whatever comes next with resolution and hope, head up, feet moving forward.

-----

As cheesy television programs mark the occasion with a giant, dropping ball each December 31, I inevitably find myself with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, unready to let go of the year just past.

It’s not that I want to live the year over or anything. There’s just something about knowing I will never again hold the hours and minutes and moments of that year in my hand that gets me in the gut.

Time slides away under our feet all day, every day and we scarcely notice. But on New Year’s Eve, time stops, just for a moment, and shimmers like a will-o’-the-wisp.

Breaks me right up, every time.

No, I don’t want to do this year again. It had some tough days. Days when I didn’t know who I was or where I was going. Days when I made big mistakes. When I hurt. When people I loved hurt, and I couldn’t help them. I don’t want to go back there.

But it had good in it, too. Lots of good. Moments of hope. Of believing in myself. Times when I held peace inside like a blanket and grabbed joy like a balloon. This year gave me heartwarming words from people I love and the chance to make other people’s lives better. It showed me I am strong.

It was a good year, even if it did have not-so-good parts.

It’s worth pausing at year’s end to look back at what was, even if it means getting a lump in your throat.

And then ― oh, and then ― you get to turn your eyes forward and run into the new year, toward whatever may come.

It will have bad, this new year. And it’ll have good. And at the end of it, you’ll look back, wonder where the time has gone, and give a little sigh as you bid it farewell.

-----

My feet were cold by the time I saw Jonah's glowing vest in the rear-view mirror. A little cloud of vapor whirled around him as he pounded to a stop, breathing heavily in the chilly air, but his face was bright. Whatever he had been thinking about as he ran, it was what he needed to start his 2024 journey on the right foot.

Back at my mother-in-laws’s apartment, the rest of the family welcomed us back with warmth and light and snacks. We nixed Ryan Seacrest and the big New York ball drop and instead had a ball-dropping ceremony of our own. As my small clan counted down the seconds, I stood in the middle of the living room, arm outstretched, holding a three-inch rubber basketball Mom scrounged up in a back room. At the stroke of Illinois midnight, I let it drop, to cheers from my silly, wonderful family.

Goodbye, 2023. Thanks for being a part of my life.

On to what’s next.