new-year hype.

I'm so sorry but I have a real problem with the hype revolving around a new year. Hear me out... I tried taking a good attitude this year about it. I had plans to do the whole dress-up-&-go-out thing with my LOVES in Halifax but fate took a twist and I ended up in Calgary (pause: Riley was in a snowboarding accident - could have been brutally bad and was for a few days but god is pretty awesome & riley is doing just fine now walking with a cane & waiting for a routine brain surgery sometime closer to the summer).
So I'm not saying I don't like an excuse to dress up all pretty and take pictures with the people I love the most and dance the night away and shout "HAPPY NEW YEAR" in sync with everyone. I think that part is really quite special but I also think it demonstrates our society's need for social bonding because the fact is, when you wake up on January 1st, nothing has changed. People with sick relatives wake up and their relatives are still sick, that application you had to write is still due, and the fight you had with your boyfriend didn't magically disappear (luckily Riley and I avoided fighting since I got here despite his major uncomfortability and my bratiness about not being at home - but I'm just speaking in general terms here).
It's not that I'm not totally enlightened by all the life-changing status updates about beginning 2011 [insert sarcasm], it's just that I don't see the difference between beginning a new year and beginning a new day. If it actually changed something other than the calendar on your wall, I may be convinced it's worth spending that $50 on the ticket to that thing you went to (and totally don't remember). Like I said, I'm not saying I don't buy into the hype: I'm just questioning the legitimacy of it all when, at the end of the day, everything remains and the pressure to change on January 1st is too great for most people to even flinch.
I had to buy a new journal (because my old one became tiresome) & my first entry was December 18th. I actually gave it a title, which is totally embarrassing - fresh start.
"Don't we always say that this year we're going to be better than the last? We use January 1st as some sort of fresh start or reconciliation for our past mistakes . As if starting this journal, or a new work-out plan, etc., on January 1st, as opposed to December 18th or March 7th or June 28th, is going to make it easier for me to commit to it... I really don't need a Jan 1st to feel like I'm getting a FRESH START - all I need is the sun to rise, and the confidence that I've been made right to know I can do all things through the strength I've been given"
I am SUCH a debbie downer right now and I'm totally aware of that. It's not that I don't think people should make new years resolutions. I just think that January 1st shouldn't be given so much credit. It's a socially constructed notion of a new beginning that doesn't actually exist. If you want a new beginning, you don't even have to go to sleep and wait for the sun to rise. Where you are in your life is an ideal condition for change.
How relieving.