The Baseball Desert

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Let It Be

I have a confession to make - I really dislike New Year's Eve. All that forced "Happy New Year!" jollity rubs me the wrong way. Of course, it's also the one evening of the year where there's likely to be an invitation to a party somewhere (this year, we're doing the inviting, so I can't even wriggle out of it...) so I generally just try to get through the evening without someone calling me Grumpy and asking if Snow White and the other six dwarves will be along soon.

Which is why the end of this post by Sheila hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. The last lines about happiness and openness struck a chord so forcefully that the lines from Longfellow were immediately etched on my brain. I searched out the quote (from Hyperion) and offer up the whole passage today as an apology in advance to those natural optimists who will be grinning at me all night:
I'm quite happy to contemplate the thought of a happy New Year, but please let me do it in my own quiet way.