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The New Year’s Eve Curse
Chasing perfection leads to disappointment
I used to think that there was a curse associated with New Year’s Eve. At least, it seemed like I’d been cursed to always have a lousy one. No matter how close I’d get to having the fun night I’d anticipated, something always went wrong. It took me years to realize that the problem was with my anticipation. I’d swallowed the notion that New Year’s Eve had to be the biggest party of the year. I sought perfection, and anything shy of that would lead to disappointment. As you can guess, not much had to go wrong to ruin perfection.
My “curse” started when I was about 11. My family had lived across the street from a family who became our best friends until they moved away. My family soon moved out of the state where they still lived, and we only got to see our friends about twice a year. For several years, we would meet them in the mountains at a ski area, renting a house together. Our dads loved to ski, out mom’s loved to shop in the area, and we loved the snow. These trips usually started a day or two after Christmas and lasted until a day or two after New Year’s. We looked forward to them every year.
What Did We Break This Year?
Our parents always went out on New Year’s Eve. They’d go to dinner followed by a late night of dancing. I don’t…
