New Year

Again, a new year starts. It's time to think back on the days of the past year. What have I done, what have I achieved, what have I not reached as the set goal? Always a pressing question surfaces up when this very first day of a new year arrives.

Last night, as usual, I and my family--my two lovers, wife and son--went out to take a walk in the cold night to spend the last few hours of 2003. Though I had a bad headache and backache, I still had a good time getting along with them. We didn't go to the bookstore to buy each of us a new book due to a shortage of enough time. Yet we did visit a restaurant to enjoy a good meal at midnight, at the border between 2003 and 2004.

People, crowded people, swarming here and there all over the city. It's hard to imagine how come so many people, including young and old, would be sleepless late at night and seem to catch the last moment of joy of the last year, to forget all the unhappy memories in the past in that joy which is no less than a hope, however faint it may look, for a better future whose first day will come to meet them soon.

The night was cold, yet expressions on people's faces were joyful and happy. Why not feel happy for all this. It's a sign of life, of being alive, no matter how many obstacles to lie ahead that, to be sure, will one time or another have to come.

I like this moment. This last night of the past year and before a new one. And this precious moment to be together with my beloved family.