The last day of the year, the turning point, day 365: the fullness of time.
The last three months of the year leading to this moment were like a three-course meal, the holidays piling one delight upon the next. Beginning with the sweet appetizer of Halloween, we dove into the main course of Thanksgiving, then savored the wonder of Christmas like a dessert. And tonight we will share a global nightcap, drawing our long evening of indulgence to a close with a final round shared among family and friends.
Glancing at my watch a previous New Year’s Eve, I was struck by how easily the numbers rolled from 23:59 to 0:00 as the calendar plunged back to 01/01 – no other moment in the year sees so dramatic a surrendering of the months and days and hours. So much fullness of time, so laboriously accrued, so easily surrendered into the past. Like it had never existed at all.
To the deer browsing in the half-light outside my office window, tomorrow will look much the same as today. For humanity, our lives ruled by calendars and digits and numbers of every sort, time may wear a sterner mask, but it will be no different for us if we look beyond the figures. Stopping to savor this passing of the old into the new, we will see little change other than tomorrow’s dawn coming a moment earlier, or the twilight enduring a few seconds longer, as this year yields gently to that.
Day 365 is ending. Time passes yet remains timeless.
Andrew "AB" Brennan 