Resolution

Six hours before the dawn of the year 2000, my then-boyfriend stumbled into the kitchen with pale cheeks and glazed eyes. “I think I’m sick,” he murmured.

I gaped at him. “But it’s New Year’s Eve!”

Jonah nodded. Or, rather, he made a motion that looked like a nod but turned out to be an involuntary spasm of the head. Then he fainted onto the kitchen floor. Once he revived, his temperature was high enough to make several doctors nervous. We canceled our plans; I spent the rest of the millennium administering sympathy and Tylenol.

When fireworks exploded on television that night, I had a flicker of disappointment but also – strangely – a spark of relief. The buildup to the last night of 1999 had been so great, the pressure to do something we’d remember for a thousand years so impossible to achieve that Jonah’s human strain of the Y2K bug came as a reprieve. We hadn’t had a smashingly, epically, millennially good time, but we’d had a medical excuse!

Why did I need an excuse to sit New Year’s out? Because though the rational part of me knows that the night’s a boorish bitter-cold mandate to spend too much money, the irrational part can’t help caring about it. Even when I vow to treat December 31 like any other night, that square on the calendar still has the power to reduce me to the insecurity and giddiness of an adolescent. It is the one night of the year when I have trouble committing to a firm plan, because the perfect party might come along at the last minute – even though, as far as I can recall, it never has.

Since college ended, New Year’s Eves have come in two distinct flavors: ones when I was dating someone and ones when I was not. Coupled New Years were wonderfully safe; fever or no, I knew I’d spend midnight in the company of someone I cared about, and the next day I’d have someone to commiserate with about the annual letdown. But what those nights lacked was the intrigue, the almost certainly misguided belief that anything (anything!) could happen at midnight. As much as my inner, awkward adolescent appreciated security, my inner, immature adolescent also craved excitement.

But when you’re single, New Year’s Eve both glimmers with potential and oozes with horror. You might kiss a delightful stranger; you might kiss a freaky stranger; you might kiss a pint of Haagen-Dazs. Last year, newly uncoupled, I went to a friend’s Jamaica Plain party with equal parts excitement and dread, but as soon as I took off my coat, dread won a resounding victory. The living room looked like the passenger list for Noah’s Ark, with all

the guests in pairs. As the televised countdown began, everyone around me floated toward

their significant others, linking lips as if by divine decree, while I exchanged uncomfortable

glances with the lone unattached man in the room. I stared into my champagne and, for 60

seconds, felt wretchedly horrible.

This year, I vowed to spend December 31 in a hot bath or under my bed or on Pluto. But then a New York friend invited me to a “really great” party, and I immediately felt the familiar flutter of excitement and dread. As I looked in my closet for something perfect to wear, I ordered myself not to get my hopes too high. I told myself I’d probably spend midnight squeezed among beer-scented strangers in a stalled subway car or that the Chinatown bus would break down in Hartford. I knew Prince Charming was unlikely to show up on his white steed. But even before I put down the phone, my hopes shot up. I could already see the steed bounding over the Brooklyn Bridge.

No matter how many times New Year’s disappoints – and I’m at 30 and counting – I’m still not able to ignore it. Perhaps I find a catharsis of sorts in the night’s predictable cycle: the getting worked up, the getting let down, and the getting over it. After all, the one great truth about New Year’s is that no matter how much midnight lets me down, I’m always fine

by 12:07. The hype may build for weeks, but it disappears faster than the champagne, and the next day dawns bright and cold and full of possibility.

Happy New Year.

Alison Lobron lives and teaches high school English in Concord. E-mail comments to

coupling@globe.com.