Sunsets

Well.

The last shreds of light are leaving Decmber 31, 2007 A.D. forever.

I suppose now would be a good time to reflect on everything that has happened during the year as the sun slowly sets.

However, much of this year I would love to forget. Much of it my mind has blocked out completely, just like with the majority of my young childhood. In no less that 6 hours and 47 minutes, I will be standing in front of the kitchen clock, just finishing the countdown to 2008.

2008. It seems like such an... "advanced" year. I remember, vaguely, when it became 2000. I was the only one the was remotely interested in the fact (or so it seemed to me) that not only was it a new century, but a new millennium as well. The third one, to be exact. The chances of someone being alive at the very moment of a new millennium is very slim. I considered myself one of the lucky "few", "few" referring to the entire population of the planet at the time. And such a number is few, when compared to all the people that have been and all the people that are yet to be.

That night, at the dawn of 2000, was when I finally began thinking about years to come - not thinking about the future, per say, but more of the actual numbers themselves. This, however, did eventually begin to spark thoughts about my future. I remember wondering to myself, "What will I be doing exactly one year from now?", and trying to remember the exact date and time so that, one year later, I would be able to look back on what I was doing then and say "So this is what I'll be doing a year from then." I always ended up forgetting the date and time.

When I asked that to my mother, she would always reply with whatever I was doing at the time that I asked it. Once, I asked it during dinner, back when our family was a little bit more together and we ate dinner together sitting around a table, and she replied that I would probably be sitting down eating dinner. But things changed so often in this household back then. Within a year, I'm sure dinner would have been eaten at a completely different time or in a completely different place or in a completely different way.

I'm thinking to myself - Should I go outside and watch the last fragments of 2007's sun set?

But once again, I think. What assurance do I have that this sunset will be any different from others? It's just another day- another rotation of the planet in another rotation around the sun. These things we call "years", they could have started or ended at any month, but January and December were chosen. If the year began on the first of May, than everyone would want to go out and watch the sunset and stay up until midnight and have parties on the first of May, and January the first wouldn't be special at all. But instead, due to pure chance, January was picked to start, so that is the month that we celebrate on, whilst May 1 is viewed upon as just another day in the year.

So, if January the first was simply chosen by chance, than what is to say that it should be any different than any other day? The sunset should be the same- the weather should be the same as the days that are near it. Truly, it is nothing special in real life.

The skies are darkening. It is 5:33. The time at the end of these posts is completely wrong...

Why don't I take a peek outside at the sunset?