For many, joy this time is in ringing out the old
Berjica Valdez prepared for New Year's Eve yesterday by buying cat food and snacks at her local Stop & Shop. She planned to celebrate the end of 2008 by watching movies at home in Milton.
That just about sums up what last year meant to the 25-year-old purchasing assistant. No frills. Stay home. Duck and cover.
"You're budgeting," she said. "No more holiday trips. No more going out to eat."
Let's face it - 2008 caused ulcers.
Sure, there was a historic election that gave people permission to hope. But for many, much of the year focused on comparisons to the Great Depression, people getting scammed out of their retirements, violence abroad, and gas prices that were so high the travel industry had to make up fake words like "staycation."
For all of those reasons, Bostonians who made their way yesterday through a nasty snowstorm (the year's final insult) said they were happy to say good riddance to 2008. Their expectations for 2009 weren't necessarily sky-high, but they were ready for change, desperate to start something new.
"I'm happy to see the year is gone," said Daniel Lopez-Ospina, owner of New Leaf, a florist on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain. "There was a lot of anxiety."
Lopez-Ospina and his partner, Jeb Taylor, opened their shop just over a year ago. Little did they know their customers wouldn't have as much pocket money for rare orchids. Last night, Lopez-Ospina and Taylor celebrated New Year's Eve at their home in Jamaica Plain. They usually go out on the holiday, but this year they partied small-scale. 2008 was all about small-scale.
2009? "I think it's going to be better," Lopez-Ospina said.
Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and regular on "Oprah" and the "Today" show who is now back to practicing on the North Shore, said Lopez-Ospina's comments about 2008-related anxiety sum up most people's feelings: They're happy to be done with it. They're still in shock, and they don't expect much from 2009, but they're hopeful.
"This year, more than any other year in 16 years of practicing psychiatry, I have more people telling me they are pleased to see a difficult chapter of their lives ending," Ablow said. "I don't think there's been a period in the time I've practiced that people have been more anxious."
Ablow says there's an upside to the misery: People learned that their families and friends are more valuable - and more consistent - than the stock market. "People are learning that the things they value the most are not the things they were taught to value the most," he said.
Lorie Spencer, who opened Village Books in Roslindale a few years ago with her sister, said she is just proud to have made it through this bad year. She said she is in a good place, thanks in part to a shopping season that had many people buying small, more personal gifts like books.
"We basically did the same as last year, which we feel is a really good accomplishment," she said. She's optimistic about 2009, the year she will turn 50. She celebrated last night by cooking dinner with friends at home.
Steve DiFillippo, owner of Davio's restaurants, was also positive yesterday, despite the fact that the snow was about to send some of his New Year's Eve business down the tubes.
"It's a year to hunker down, no question," he said. "What are you going to do, put your head in the sand?"
Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com. 