Well, it’s official. I’ve now entered the year I turn 40.

Yikes.

That thought didn’t occur to me until a few days ago. And I started getting nervous. Nervous of all things! Me. The kid who’s always wanted to be older than she was. Always looked forward to her next birthday, couldn’t wait to turn 30, and usually starts saying she’s the next older age about six months before her birthday.

For the first time in my life (besides 2003, which doesn’t really count ’cause that was my first birthday after mom and dad died) I so do not want to reach my birthday.

Whew…. I’d planned a much happier, more positive post for this particular moment. But… well… here we are.

On a happier note, I talked with Nina shortly after midnight here and things are going very well at her home. We laughed over a shared memory both of us thought of a minute or so before we each entered the midnight hour…

When we were kids we used to go as a family out on our porch at midnight on New Years– regardless of where we were living and the temperature outside — and bang pots and pans as loud as we could and yell "Happy New Year!" at the top of our lungs. Usually everyone else in the neighborhood were in their own respective yards doing something similar

We always had so much fun on New Years eve. Eating popcorn, left over Christmas candy (my mom made the most awesomely fantastic Christmas candy ever!!), and left over turkey and fixin’s from Christmas dinner, laughing, playing games, and often watching family slides — family slides were like a huge treat for us. I can’t think of anything kids have today that could compare to that sort of treat. Pity. They have so much they can do right at their fingertips that nothing is special anymore, nothing is a treat. Pan-banging was the climax of the evening. Usually once that was done mom and dad were ready for bed. As Nina and I got older we’d usually stay up much later, but I probably would conk out not long after the banging in the new year. I say probably because I can’t honestly remember.

I do remember one particular New Years where our new neighbors were not so keen on our chosen way of "ringing" in the new year….. We were living in Casper, Wyoming. It was our second New Year there. We lived in a new housing complex and the house behind us had just recently been built. As we were banging away on our pots and yelling out to all the world to have a Happy New Year on our back porch, our neighbor in the house behind us yelled out his window that nobody cared and for us to shut up. Dad and mom were really upset. I was embarrassed at being yelled at, and a little confused. Why weren’t these people ringing in the new year like the rest of the world?

The last couple of years I’ve had a strong desire to grab a pan and big spoon and bang the crap out of ’em on New Years’. I think that’s in part to keep mom and dad alive in some small way. But I’ve always been to scared to do it, for fear of upsetting the neighbors and getting yelled at again.

Isn’t that weird. Nearly 40 years old and I’m still intimidated by my neighbors. Maybe that’s something I should change in 2005….