Ahhhhh

I stopped going out for New Years a while ago and have enjoyed a quiet night, usually to myself for a number of years.

This year, I chose to stay home, with my own thoughts, and actually found myself quite drained and exhausted.  So I cleaned my house up (as per tradition) and left the windows open for the fresh new year's air and I went to bed a few hours before midnight.

I read for a bit, and then fell asleep, even though a few days earlier I'd said to a practitioner that "the sound of downtown celebrating always wakes me up".

Not that I've fallen asleep that many times before midnight on New Year's Eve, but I'd apparently done it at least once before.  Which means Monday night shouldn't have been a huge surprise.  But it still kind of was!

I did think about putting earplugs in but I also thought it would be nice to be woken up by the bells and whatever else.

Except I guess I forgot that the bells go on for quite a while.  As in, when I'd been lying there for a while, listening to them and some firecracker/works, I finally looked at the clock and it was only 11:38.  So I lay in bed not really awake, but certainly not asleep kind of half trying to sleep but wanting to be awake for the new year and then things got a little quiet and then the actual celebrating happened.  The bells seemed louder and there was shouting and firecracking/workings and I got up, super dazed and said a hello to the New Year.  I opened my door to let the air in/out.  I closed up a window so it wouldn't be freezing in the morning, and then I went back to bed.

It was a strange evening, a rather melancholy one and I wasn't terribly well rested on New Year's Day but here we are, in a new year, with new numbers to remember to write down and a new calendar to flip through.

Life is funny, "time" is weird.  I'm happy to not be recovering from a wild night out in my first few days of 2019.  Happy New Year, guys.