A thoughtful New Year's Eve day.

New Year’s Eve. Well, day of the Eve, if you know what I mean. It doesn’t seem right to call it just “Eve” when it’s light outside. So that’s how I call these days: New Year’s Eve day, New Year’s Day eve; Christmas Eve day, Christmas Day eve. It’s useful, at least to me. Anyway.

Have you noticed that in the Christmas season, it’s appropriate to say Merry Christmas all the way up until Christmas Day? But for the New Year, it seems wrong to say it until it’s actually the New Year.  Yet, I am looking forward to the New Year, as I did Christmas, so I wish I could say it in the same way, but it just doesn’t seem right. Do others feel the same way?

It’s windy today. And I mean, high-wind-advisory strength. The wind blows so hard that the metal knocker on our front door knocks slightly when a big gust comes up. So I’m particularly jumpy today, thinking that someone is at the door, before I remember how windy it is.

Then that cold, December wind puts me in the mood for tea. So I put the teakettle on, feeling so-vintage-it’s-chic for doing so. It takes awhile for the water to boil, so I do other chores around the house in the meantime. Then, when the kettle screams, I literally jump up, and I race upstairs to the kitchen to pull it off the burner. Is there really a need for such hurry? Probably not, but that highly-concentrated steam has a note of anxiety in it, so I rush to its rescue—or is it my rescue?—to ease my nerves. I’m doing a lot of jumping today; I probably need the soothing tea.

The last day of the year. Naturally it makes me look back. Particularly noteworthy is my engagement, of course. That’s an event that literally will affect the rest of my life, perhaps more than any other event. Congratulations, 2011, you get the honor of containing that landmark. Or should I say “timemark”? In fact, many people I know got engaged this year. It’s the season of our lives, I suppose, for that kind of thing. I count in my head: thirteen. I believe there are thirteen couples, besides myself and my fiancé, that got engaged this year. That’s a lot of weddings for people I know in 2012!

What’s curious about these engagements, besides the sheer number of them in one year, is that most of these people are close to my age. That means they are considerably younger than the national average age that people get married. And to be honest, I am quite proud of my friends for this fact. Take that, American culture, I think to myself. While I don’t have anything against people getting married at an older age, it’s understandable that many people don’t want to wait so long, especially if they’ve been dating the same person for some time. I don’t expect that my circle of friends and acquaintances are an accurate representation of national trends, but I do find the difference striking. Also, the nation’s average length of engagement is about 15-18 months (I couldn’t find any hard facts on this but the sites I saw seemed to have a general consensus), so this means that nearly all of these couples will have had a shorter-than-average engagement as well. Same reason as above probably applies here: don’t want to wait.

The national trend shows that fewer people overall are getting married these days and the divorce rate is still high. So the final reason this makes me proud is that these couples are sticking it to the “Man”—if readers will allow me to refer to culture as a man—by saying that they still believe in marriage; they are still willing to give it a try. Personally, I am consciously saying those things with my own agreement to get married—one that is made all the stronger because I don’t believe divorce is an option, except in very extreme circumstances. I especially give kudos to those of my friends who come from divorced families. That’s an incredible faith! So on this New Year’s Eve day, I toast to you, newly engaged couples of 2011.

A somber note bears including, however. No matter how atypical this group of couples is, statistically, some of these couples will divorce. Considering their ages and lengths of engagement, the likelihood might be even higher than normal. It’s hard to think about, when I like all of these people and can honestly say I am excited about all of these relationships. It makes me want to look back on that list of 2011 couples in 5, 10 and 20 years, to see who stood the test of time. Only God knows. Hm. You know what? For once, I’m glad He’s the only one who does.

Well, this has been quite the entry of varied topics and tones, and I think I shall end here for today. I’ll adapt the classic poem’s final line as my way of signing off:

“Happy New Year to all, and to all, a good night.”

As always, thoughtfully yours,

Ellen

(P.S. Strange to think my last initial will change next year! That will take some getting used to! For now, I’ll just leave it off entirely.)