A new year is always a scary thing for me.

A new year signifies that a huge chunk of time has gone and is never coming back. It signifies that I have grown older but not wiser. I have grown frailer and poorer and still haven’t achieved my life goals, and now I have less time and health in which to see them through.

I am an amoeba journeying towards the dark at the end of the tunnel.

New years, for me, do not mean a new beginning. Everyone knows that nothing is going to change, so what’s with the hopes and resolutions? Nobody keeps new year resolutions — the whole resolution routine is a gimmick to trick people into thinking that they can start anew. But by the time the next new year rolls around, nothing will have changed.

That is why, every new year, people make yet another set of resolutions. Because they didn’t keep to last year’s set.

So stop making them already.

Last night, I counted down to 2006 with my friends. It was a fun, social thing to do and I did it by force of habit. Sure, I enjoyed myself because I always enjoy partying with friends.

But on the way home in the wee hours of the new year’s morning, it hit me.

It’s the freaking new year and we’re going to have to go through the whole sad routine all over again.

Don’t get me wrong. I am usually an optimistic person and I always believe that my future has wonderful things for me to experience and discover.

But new years are like alarm clocks and exam bells. They jolt you out of your comfort zone and put pressure on you, hurry you along.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Wake up to reality, sleepyhead! You didn’t really win that $2.8 million Toto jackpot and you didn’t really kiss Colin Farrell. Now you have to get up and go to work and hope that you can save enough money by the end of the year to fly to Hollywood and maybe get to see Colin Farrell’s nail shavings. Ha ha ha, sucker.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Time’s up! Pens down! It’s too late now to regret not studying harder. Now you have to work even harder to pass the next exam. Ha ha ha, sucker.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

2005 is over, sucker! Stop dreaming and buck up because you still haven’t gotten that promotion, you still haven’t gotten rid of those flabby arms, you still leave dishes lying in the sink, and you still spend too much money buying nonsense you never use.

So, there you are, trying your darndest to make sense of life and keep your happiness bar in the green, and then the great big cosmic alarm goes off and tells you that you’d better hurry up and do it faster because everything is getting old.

You’re older. Your furniture is older, your house is older, your computer is older and dying, your breasts are sagging (if you have them in the first place), your clothes are out of fashion, your bank account is terminally ill.

Where is the new in new year? Hello?

The only thing new you have is maybe teeth because all your old ones had fallen out and you needed to get a new set two days ago.

I think people should stop celebrating the new year.

What are we celebrating, exactly? Mother Earth’s birthday?

You know, Mother Earth isn’t happy because her children are tearing her apart with pollution and wars and resource drains.

The whole world is going to the junkyard and people are celebrating.

It’s crazy.

Nevertheless, I hope everyone has a great 2006. Despite everything, I think we all deserve our happiness.