The Happy New Year

This was going to be the year we partied.

That's what my two best friends and I decided.  We'd been friends since kidnergarten and had spent several New Year's Eves together, but somehow they never ended up going the way we had hoped.  There was the year we went bowling with my parents.  The year we played board games with my little sister.  The year we had a Lord of the Rings movie marathon (complete with Lord of the Rings themed Trivial Pursuit).  Well, this year we were home from our sophomore year in college and there were going to be no excuses.  We were going to party.

Allison wanted to get over the guy that dumped her by flinging herself into the arms of the first semi-attractive single guy she saw.  Emily wanted to cut loose outside the restrictions of her Christian college (can you say curfew?).  I wanted to dance with my boyfriend somewhere crowded enough where no one could notice how awful at dancing we are.  We found the perfect place to do all that and more:  a friend of my boyfriend was hosting the perfect New Year's Eve party at his frat house. 

Since we all go to seperate colleges, we were thrilled at the prospect of partying with each other (in high school, none of us were, shall we say, the partying type).  We did some pre-planning:  who would drink, who wouldn't drink so someone could drive us home.  How slutty we would dress.  Whether or not high heels were the way to go. 

Two days before the party, it was cancelled because a member of the close-knit group of guys my boyfriend had grown up with died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 21.  My boyfriend spent New Year's Eve with the guys: reminiscing, playing video games, and, I suspect, a fair amount of crying.  Allison, Emily, and I all stayed home.  My sister and I had a Friends marathon (with special focus on the New Year's episodes) with the DVD set I had received for Christmas.  We noticed it was 11:59 and turned the channel to watch the ball drop with four seconds to spare.  We both kissed my dog, since he was the only "boy" handy.

Happy New Year.