Auld Lang Syne... What on Earth does that mean? The Scotch/Irish in me says it means "times gone by" and is about friends from the past and not letting them be forgotten. I watched "When Harry Met Sally" for the umpteenth time the other night, and even Harry was confused by the saying. "Should old acquaintance be forgot? Does that mean that we should forget old acquaintances? Or does it mean that if we happened to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot them?"
Sally comes back to say "Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them or something."
I never really gave it much thought myself until recently. I told the person closest to me today that I feel abandoned. Those I loved most in former life exiled me from their lives a little over a year ago, never to say another word to me - as if I had died. My own family has disappeared from my life as well in a time where I didn't know how to survive until the next tomorrow. Were it not for that one special soul, now dearest to me, I know I wouldn't have seen much beyond July of this year. My year long personal human crisis has literally beaten the life out of me so relentlessly I've lost 25% (or roughly 55 pounds) of my former self. The most bowdlerized dismantling created out of my feeling of forgotten abandon which has been keeping me staring bleary eyed into the dark - night after sleepless night - sculpting my evaporating reflection...
2016 beat down the souls of many. And took the souls of many from us. Just this week depriving us of two souls that brought joy to millions. I myself cried an entire night over the loss of Carrie Fisher. Sleepless and sobbing like 2 year old over the death of someone I've never met, and then grasping at anything at all to stop the tears by trying to find some logical sense as to WHY exactly I'm so overwrought with emotion. Only to realize over and over again how she and a handful of unknowns created something so magical in a galaxy far, far away some 40 years ago, that still to this day THAT magic continues to make a profound impact on me! It is the very reason why I still have an insatiable appetite to pursue my dream. And in creating my own personal tribute to her (seen at the bottom of this post) I realized how important people are and that we remember them fondly. Because in the blink of an eye, life itself becomes a fleeting memory...
So, as you toast with champagne and share a kiss with someone special as 2017 is born later this evening ponder Sally's take on Auld Lang Syne, and let no one become abandoned. Remember those forgotten, so that they may live on within our souls forever.
For Carrie... Forever Our Princess
