HAPPY NEW YEAR

“January 1st is just another day.” This is a statement I’ve been hearing lately, cynicism encroaching on this New Year’s Day holiday, and one that I reject entirely. Because it’s not. It’s the first day of a new year, a chance for a fresh start, a new plan, a new planner (man, I love a fresh planner). Any chance to start anew should be seized, right? Opportunities for growth are good things, even if they’re difficult in the short term. That’s what we teach kids, so why should it stop for adults? I get that trying new things is difficult, and diet culture has threatened to strange the life and joy out of the day, but I had the good fortune to learn the beauty of a fresh start from a master. Lizzi, one of my closest friends in high school, knew how to get excited for a change, big or small.

I didn’t had a ton of memorable NYE extravaganzas. It wasn’t a high priority holiday for my family. But that year, my friends and I were going to have a party. Of course we were. We were 17 and 18 years old, and we didn’t need much to make something into an occasion. We weren’t cool kids. We were in band and AP classes and lots of extracurriculars, but we loved each other and didn’t care at all about what cool was supposed to be. The party was at one of the boys’ houses, one much too nice for a bunch of roving teenagers, so we were all in the basement. In my memory, the basement was packed, some of the boys’ heads threatening to brush the low ceiling and kids scattered about on the overstuffed furniture and pool table. I definitely sat on top of the pool table. His mom was there, safely upstairs, and I’m honestly not at all sure that she knew my name. Despite this, she was a lovely lady and didn’t let us do anything too stupid. We stayed up all night because we could, and I think we all left the house after the sun had come up in the morning.

The shining star of this party memory was my friend, Lizzi. We’d gotten close in high school because we both played the flute in marching band, but I’d quit in my senior year. I also had a boyfriend who went to a different high school (one I was about to break up with), so she and I hadn’t seen as much of each other in that first semester. That NYE party felt like old times - watching bad movies, going nuts when the ball dropped, singing late-90s punk songs, all of it. Lizzi was all fun and life, and she was beautiful and fierce. Boys tended to hang around her, and she would let them for a while, until she missed her friends or they insulted a band she liked. She knew better than to be too serious about boys in high school.

From the very beginning, Lizzi and I bonded over music and sports. I mentioned we played the same instrument in band, but more than that, we saw concerts at gross little hole-in-the-wall venues in South Bend or sometimes went to the shows put on by our friends who were in bands, most of which were pretty bad. Lizzi supported all of them, getting the t-shirt from the merch table in the smallest size available. We drove to and from school together with the windows down in her Rav-4, listening to music and singing loud, blonde-streaked brown hair blowing in the wind. More than just musical, she was the starting pitcher for our high school softball team and also played in college. Lizzi seemed to thrive under pressure, throwing strikes out of nowhere when the game was on the line. It’s also because of her I adopted the habit of listening to new CDs beginning to end with the liner notes to learn all of the words to all the songs. I still remember the lyrics to the Blink182 album with the nurse/prostitute on the front (you know the one - you had it too), and also the Eve6 album with the fly on the cover. It’s Lizzi who told me what the band name Eve6 referenced (X-Files I think), and we also listened to terrible stuff like MXPX and NoFX and other bands I’m embarrassed about now, but I loved her and we sang together while driving too fast down 2-lane roads between corn fields.

We grew apart in college. She went to a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania while I went to Indiana University, a school with about 30,000 students. We saw each other over breaks and would catch up and hug and all that, but she had a new life. She was the queen of new. She made connections everywhere she went and prioritized the future. She moved around a bit after graduation, and we’d send messages, but then I started seeing posts on Facebook about her cancer diagnosis and treatments. I didn’t think she’d want to be bothered, so I stayed away. She had lots of people she loved around her so I didn’t push in, thinking there’d be plenty of time. It seemed like treatment was going well. She had a husband and a child and so much going for her in life. We’d reconnect when she recovered.

But instead, she got worse and quickly, and then there was no time left. Lizzi was gone, and I was sending her sister money to contribute to her son’s college fund. Here’s how I learned of Lizzi’s passing: I was talking to my mom on speaker while I washed my face one morning in March 2018. I was standing in my bathroom, eyes alternating between the mirror and whatever I was about to put on my skin. It was time for toner, a product I’m still not entirely sure I know what it’s supposed to do for me, when my mom said, “Oh and you must’ve heard that Lizzi died, right? I was talking to Lynn this weekend, and she told me. How awful.” Something came loose inside of me, like a snap or a crack, and instantly I was sobbing. No, I hadn’t known. Yes, I knew she was sick, but I didn’t realize she was THAT sick.

So call that person you can’t stop thinking about, start that new thing you’ve been scared to try, reconnect with that old friend. It’s a new year, and taking that for granted will lead only to regret. In Lizzi’s honor, the one excited for the new and the future, take the opportunity given right now, on this day. Make a plan and tell your friends. We can all seize on this chance.

After hearing that news, who knows what I said after the initial shock, but when the tears subsided, I thought of New Year’s Eve when we were seniors in high school. I pictured her dancing and singing wearing a tight t-shirt with a band name on the front. I imagined us together, futures uncertain but knowing without a doubt that great things were ahead. And I remembered counting down, arm in arm, paper hats on and noisemakers in hand, 10…9…8…7…