New Year’s Eve Enlightenment

 New Year’s Eve is a night filled with joy, with loss, with hope, with regret, and with enlightenment.  Every year celebrated every person fills this night with whichever vision they deem relevant.  Most choose joy and hope.  As for me, I despise it.  I have never enjoyed it.  At least not since I was 19 years old discovering the real value of friendship and the loss of loyalty, trust, and regret.  Yes, I was enlightened that New Year’s.  Friends pulling a prank that resulted in my intoxication.  The laughter, the humiliation, the sickness all ended my trust with friends and my caring for them.  I 

I know, many would have laughed and joined in with delight. Unfortunately, I am not like that.  I have been dealing with issues since my brother died and my parents divorced.  I had had to learn how to handle remarriages of my parents and the inclusion of step parents, and step siblings.  The learning never stopped. The way to celebrate holidays, birthdays, even just normal every day could lead to a moment of hurt or anxiety.  But we two younger girls from 2 different families did something amazing.  We joined together and became one family, 2 sisters who cared for the people who were mom and dad. It was hard, but we did it.  As I said though, I had been handling many things .  Yet, my friends and family had no idea of what I had been dealing with for the past year.  

Through the years, I have revisited that night many times.  Usually I block it, but every New Year’s Eve it rears it’s ugly head; that is until I finally resolved in my mind and heart.  One year I realized that no one knew about my battle.  A battle with mental illness.  They didn’t know about my suicidal thoughts, or my suicide attempt.  My mom and stepfather knew.  After my back injury, I went to them.  I should have stayed there.  I had changed completely.  The person my friends had known was gone.  Buried in the recesses of a mind injured by illness, an illness that’s runs deeply in my genetic code.  An illness which attacks leaving me exhausted, weak, and depressed.  PTSD raged at times and I relive Ivan’s death .  Sometimes it’s a daily occurrence, sometimes, I can go a couple of months without living it over.  This is the secret I lived with since I was 9.  When I was 18, I couldn’t deal with the belief that no one cared about me, that I lost my family when Ivan died.  No one knew or understood this.  Music was my savior.  My friends were my saviors without knowing.  My life was changed, nothing was going to be the same.  When I finally discovered this fact, I found peace, forgiveness, and healing.  Although, the mental illness is still a raging issue at times, medication, counseling, and a loving husband and daughter helps a great deal!  

So, on this New Year’s Eve, I lift a cup of cheer my friends for sulfur lang syne!  God bless you all and may we enjoy the friendship which has endured all these years!

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Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For days of auld lang syne

We twa hae run about the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit
Sin days of auld lang syne

And we twa hae paidl'd I' the burn
Frae morning sun 'til dine
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin days of auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For days of auld lang syne

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp
And surely I'll be mine
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere
And gie's a hand o' thine
And we'll tak a right gude-willy waught
For auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syn