I don’t need a New Year’s Eve party or a resolution. Neither do you.

I could go crazy on New Year’s Eve. I could drop $75 at Prohibition for the Rich & Bennett NYE Bash, maybe rip a shot during the complimentary balloon drop. I could go even bigger with the Southern Skyline Grand Ball at Le Meridien, with its 10 bands and deejays, half-priced hotel rooms and signature cocktails for the ticket price of $130. I could laugh, dance, drink wine and worship the promise of a fresh start until I don’t remember any of it.

But I’ve done that.

I’ve drunk myself into oblivion at a New Year’s Eve party in college and I’ve gagged over passed meatballs and cheap wine at an overpriced party on a boat in adulthood.

And the New Year’s Eve extravaganza I’ll never forget — or fully remember — was the one I spent more than $100 to attend at the aquarium in Charleston. I was 23, I was decked out in my old, sleek prom dress, and I was guzzling wine like it was my last chance to taste it before the apocalypse.

The first thing I heard someone blurt out when I got there was, “Damn, this is crazy.”

Girls were drinking Bud Light in a lemur enclosure, a guy was pretending to row a canoe in the toddler play area, people were doing “the wobble” up against the shark tank and the circular layout of the facility made the crowd and the bands and the chaos seem like it was all rushing around and around in waves. Just add alcohol.

I remembered enough of that to write about it in bed the next day while I sipped Powerade with Ibuprofen.

What I don’t remember is what I said to my now-boyfriend who kissed me at midnight. What I don’t remember is what I said to my friend who tried to kiss me later. What I don’t remember is the walk back to downtown Charleston, or whether I felt pretty in my dress, or what I set as my resolution moving into 2013, except to somehow start over.

I’m tired of treating the first day of January as my one day to start over.

Over the years, on the first day of the year, I’ve given up alcohol, I’ve given up chocolate (which induced nightmares, oddly). I’ve given up bad habits and they came back anyway.

But I — and you — can give up something or let go of something any day of the year.

You can settle onto your yoga mat and choose to start anew the minute you stand up and step off.

You can wake up tomorrow and choose to be grateful for your life.

You can swing your very next thought in a positive direction, or let your next move be letting go of a habit.

You can change at any time, without a new year, without a party.

So can I.

Photo: Katie Toussaint

This story was originally published December 28, 2017 at 10:00 PM with the headline "I don’t need a New Year’s Eve party or a resolution. Neither do you.."