Chime.

Here we are. It's another day. The sun's out, or it isn't. The birds are singing, or they aren't. You're filled with a sense of existential dread that you're masking a little more than usual.

Or you aren't.

I love the idea of a New Year's party. We have people from all across the world and all walks of life cheering our little planet on as it makes another turn around the sun. I like that thought, all of us shouting encouragement at the Earth as it books it for the celestial finish line. I like even more that the race starts over again but we're still cheering until someone hits someone else or throws up in public.

Or maybe I don't. I'm not sure yet.

New Year's celebrations are beautiful in the darkest way; for a few minutes we completely embrace the passage of time, hoot and holler as the clock winds down, the numbers go up, and we get a little older. We celebrate our own mortality, raise drinks to our locked drift through the days, and make our own peace with the end of it all. New journeys start as old adventures finish.

You know what the greatest part is? We all watch a clock and count down the last seconds of the last minute of the final hour of the final day, pushing the time along into another year, a greater number, closer to greater and more final endings...and we start it with a kiss.

The first word most people speak every year is 'happy.' Tell me that isn't beautiful.