Oh, irony.
This time last year I had just moved to Zhytmyr and everyone spoke a language (Russian) that I didn't understand (having been trained in Ukranian). My host parents went to bed and my host brothers went out without me and I had never felt more alone. I wanted nothing more than to be in America.
Since then I have made lots of friends, learned much of the language and feel very comfortable in Ukraine, but this time this year I was with my family while it seemed that everyone was at a blow-out bash for Ukraine's biggest holiday. My mom was in bed at 10:00 PM and I was ringing in the New Year watching a movie with her fiancee. I wanted nothing more than to be in Ukraine.
It's not that I can't be satisfied, it's just that my world has changed a lot in this year and while I'm not "more" at home in Ukraine, for now it is my home and save for my going-to-bed early family, I know few people here in Florida.
But I did have dinner this evening with my mom, her fiancee, my sister and my niece and I was reminded of an oft-written Vonnegut quote that I once had the honor of hearing from him in person: "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
But yeah, making the phone calls to people in Ukraine to wish them happy New Year and hearing the raucous cheering in the background did make me miss it.
I am reminded of some very good prior New Years, though:
*16 years-old, working at Universal Studios as a skipper on the Jaws ride. My job was to yell a lot and shoot at a mechanical shark. Most of the park was in position to watch the fireworks display as midnight approached on New Years Eve, but a group of teens kept getting back on my boat and so instead of acting out the spiel, we did a live Mystery Science Theatre 3000 while things exploded, the shark attacked, the boat shook and the clock turned midnight.
*21 years-old: not New Years Eve but the evening of New Years Day, my friend Robin took me to see some of Orlando's illegal street races. Think Fast and the Furious with Forty Year-olds. There were a couple fights, getting chased off (twice) by the cops (not high-speed chases, just chased off--which did mean piling into cars and clearing out like roaches), a lot of really nice cars and, of course, races, which are over in seconds as opposed to movie slow-mo, lots of angles, the-lights-begin-to-streek races.
*25 years-old: in Times Square, although unwilling to wait the 12 hours necessary to be in Times Square, my five hour wait had me locked in the paddock at 56th street (every block is ringed with barriers; if you leave, you're not let back in) while the action was up on 42nd. Played guitar with some guys from North Carolina, watched a guy without his shirt of running around in the sub-zero cold screaming "97 more minutes! 96 more minutes!", and basically held back a fierce need to go to the bathroom while we wondered what all the cheering near the epicenter was about. Had a clear view of the ball, though, and the boredom of the evening did give way to intense elation when the ball dropped, it hit midnight and I was one of half a million watched by billions singing "Aulde Lang Syne".
Memories keep one company on lonely nights.