A Toast to the New Year

As 2011 swiftly connects to our foreheads with a sickening “crack,” we are left to reflect on the bitter, metallic taste of 2010 that still lingers in our mouths.

2010 proved to be twelve more years of soul-crushing minutia and subjugated emotions for us all. The precious few glimpses of joy we experienced were completely buried in an avalanche of emotional scarring and soul-deep shame. It will take years to forget 2010, and even longer to forgive.

But 2011’s promise is still fresh, bright, and new. The nagging, dull ache of reality will soon swallow it whole, however, and we will once again be left alone and afraid, mere husks of the people we once dreamed we could be.

As our hearts and souls are constantly haunted by the faces of those we’ve wronged, and as we struggle to bury the secrets and lies that we wear on our haggard, shame-filled faces, let us clutch to the shallow, fleeting glimpses of false hope the beginning of the year only can bring. After all, these first few days of January bring us the only tiny twinges of pleasure we will ever experiences in our lives bereft of all joy and meaning.

Please, my fellow friend, join me as I choke back the bile of resentment and raise my glass of suppressed dreams to my one and only fleeting friend, the year of 2011.