The problem with New Year's

I’m tired of New Year’s Eve.

I’m tired of the pressure, the anticipation, the crowds, the expense, the traffic, the countdown, the forced merriment, the ball dropping, the yelling and those stupid novelty glasses.

I’m tired of feeling that wherever I am, there’s probably something better going on somewhere else.

I’m tired of telling myself that this year I will really do it up and this year I will make the most of it and this year I will do something fun and festive with my makeup, to indicate that it’s New Year’s Eve and I am a fun person, and then doing my makeup just like I do every single other night, which just seems so ... boring.

Once, in eighth grade, I wore Christmas ornament earrings — they were little pink hollow glass balls, just like you’d hang on the tree, but smaller and made into earrings. They were awesome and whimsical and they sandwiched my face in FUN. Then one slipped off and shattered on the sidewalk as I was walking home. I’ve been trying to attain that level of festivity ever since. In fact, every time I’m back at my parent’s house, I see the little set of replacement Christmas ornament earrings given to me many years later in a vain attempt to fill the Christmas-ornament-earring-shaped hole in my heart, but it’s just not the same. Not only because these are little metallic glittery globes — so much more garish and obvious than their predecessors — but because I’m no longer that girl. Now I’m a combination of Scrooge before he sees the ghosts, the character in “We Need a Little Christmas” who needs a little Christmas, and the Grinch.

Which is to say I’m an adult. Sort of.

But back to my beef with New Year’s Eve — by this point, I’ve pretty much tried all the permutations. I’ve gone to giant parties (too chaotic), I’ve played board games with friends (too staid), I’ve chased doomed love (pathetic), I’ve pretended I didn’t realize a relationship was on its last legs because how do you break up between Christmas and New Year’s (not a good way to usher in a new year), I’ve waited until the last minute to make plans (tough on the people you’re making plans with), I’ve waited until almost the last minute to make plans (I pretty much always wait — I’m indecisive!) and I’ve stayed home and done nothing at all (liberating but depressing). I’ve also been between parties at the stroke of midnight, on the road at the stroke of midnight and in a bathroom reapplying lipgloss at the stroke of midnight.

The thing is, the older I get the more I realize that fun happens when you aren’t really setting out to have it, when the expectation isn’t there, when it just creeps up on you and you find yourself singing at the top of your lungs in a car or laughing uncontrollably at an offhand comment or doing something you didn’t expect to find yourself doing — such as ice skating. But it’s impossible to do anything on New Year’s without the expectation of fun. Fun is New Year’s raison d’etre. Hence it can’t live up to itself.

But if you think just not observing it is an option, it isn’t. I tried that, and it wasn’t fun.

Which is why I’m thinking maybe this year I’ll wear glittery eyeliner. That sounds festive.

Hear more from Alison Rosen on her podcast, “Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend” or on the immensely popular “Adam Carolla Show” podcast. Follow her on Twitter @alisonrosen or visit her website at http://www.alisonrosen.com.

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