Attitude

I've never understood the fascination with celebrating the new year. Of course, I love the excuse to gather with friends for a fun night of cocktail dresses, classy drinks, and charming noisemakers; but I've never understood the significance of celebrating a new beginning—who wants that? Who wants to start fresh when you have all of that interesting baggage to color your life? To me, it seemed like the best kind of accessory: I could always shove all those little mistakes and things gone wrong in my life into a cute metaphorical handbag, and then carry it stylishly with me into the new year.

This year, things changed; all those little negatives plus the one giant thing gone wrong in my life were too heavy and ugly to take with me. So, as New Year's Eve approached, I looked forward to it, finally understanding the longing for a fresh start. I said "Happy New Year!" with enthusiasm, and then I took a deep breath, expecting relief, maybe even hope. But I didn't feel it, not really—because I didn't just want to erase last year, serenely letting it fall into my past: I wanted to obliterate it. Despite wishing for a happier year ahead, I was and am hanging onto my intense anger towards the past year.

In the book The Catcher in the Rye, Holden goes through a couple of emotionally traumatic events when he's young, which then color his attitude towards the adult world. Because of this, he lets himself get away with disliking almost everyone and everything. Despite how unreasonable that may sound in summary, anyone who's read the book knows how easy it is to relate to Holden's I'm-better-off-alone-than-with-any-of-you-crumbums attitude. In fact, his criticisms are often so poignantly accurate, it's hard not to laugh and wish you had noticed first.

However, what Holden fails to do is acknowledge any of the good stuff. While most of us are annoyed by life sometimes, Holden is annoyed constantly—which is how we end up with a hopelessly bitter narrator who is has to "take it easy" and talk to a psychotherapist regularly. Holden adopts criticism as his attitude towards life.

It's very easy for me to look back at this past year with a critical eye; but I need to make sure I don't dwell on criticism so much that it becomes my outlook. So as not to end up like our aforementioned lovable but insane narrator, I have to recognize the good in last year. 2009 was the year of my mother's death. Because of this, sometimes I feel just as isolated and full of resentment as Holden. But 2009 was also the year that I graduated from college. It was the year that I deepened some of the best friendships of my life, the year that I moved to Spain. It was the that year my baby girl cousin was born.

Right now it's hard for me to feel that the good outshines the bad; but I'm acknowledging it. I'm trying to keep an attitude towards life that will allow me to eventually let my anger fade.