I used to really enjoy going to bringing in the new year with a party. Of all the New Year's Eve parties I ever attended there is one that stands out.  I was 20 and I was living in a townhouse that was like the Disneyland of college homes.  My awesome roommate (dubbed The Bassmaster) and I lived in what was the social center of the universe of our peer group.  Every weekend we would host parties that would start early and end very very late. (or early depending how you look at it)  It was New Years Eve 1993 and we had opened the townhouse to all comers who wanted to celebrate the ringing in of the new year.

This was one of our wildest evenings.  If I am being honest not exactly sure what happened that night.  I have a few glimpses of what transpired but most of those visions are pretty foggy.  I remember at the beginning of the evening sitting down to enjoy what most college kids did in the mid-90's...drinking games.  In our circle of friends drinking games were our equivalent of what transpired in the colosseum in ancient Rome.  A few brave souls would enter the fray and in the end there was usually only one winner.  (by winner I mean that was the person who had puked out the contents of their stomach...which was usually nothing more than Taco Bell and whatever cheap swill had been used in the drinking game)  Not proud to admit that I had spent a great deal of my college years around a sticky table playing drinking games.  They were such a part of my life that every now and then I catch myself having a flashback when I am sitting around my dinner table.  Suddenly I am challenging my 8-year old to "pound" his full glass of milk before I take three shots of soy sauce.  By the way, I lost....turns out my son has a natural ability to consume liquids quickly which means he is going to make a good college student...or bad one....depending on how you look at it.

Aside from taking part in the idiotic ritual of gathering with my friends and forcing us to drink really unhealthy amounts of Boones Farm $2.99 wine, I don't really remember what else took place that night.  The whole night blurred right past me...except for about a ten minute window of time which to this day remains a scene that lives in my memory with absolute clarity...

The clock was striking down and all the party-goers were crammed in our small living room getting ready to watch the pre-taped ball get released by the magical wink of an apparent 24-year old Dick Clark.  At that moment I was surrounded by all of my friends and each of us were excited about the prospects of a new year.  Hell, we were all your typical college kids in our early 20's and life at that moment seemed so easy. The world was ours for the taking!  With our arms around each other's shoulders we followed the script and started calling out the mantra with the television...

5....4.....3.......2.......1!!!!!

Happy New Year!!!!!!

Then the large group of us danced up and down to the classic R.E.M song "It's the end of the world as we know it. (and I feel like) with the unbridled enthusiasm of youth.  No worries about the what tomorrow would bring...just shaking the house with pure energy.  I can remember feeling my legs buckling under me due to the floor shaking so badly...had there been a basement we would have taken the first floor down into it. 

We then gathered around the room and the lot of us voiced out loud our drunken resolutions for the upcoming year.  I don't remember what I said...I have no doubt my resolution was fairly moronic like "I resolve to learn how to make bacon flavored gum" or something like that to make my future wife giggle from under her towering 1993 hair.  Of course I don't remember what anyone else said in that circle of "resolution" during that moment.  I just remember there were a bunch of us who were filled with hope and excitement for the new year. 

That was a great evening and a fantastic New Year's Eve party! 

Flash forward 18 years and I hate those stupid New Year's Eve parties.  Where years ago I was flowing with youth and hope, today I usually find myself tired and skeptical.

I am no longer a big fan of gathering with folks to focus on turning the page on one year and casting my eyes upon the next one.  The main problem with New Years Eve is that it is followed by New Years Day...and that is a day where we are encouraged by self-help guru's and Bo-Flex infomercial babes to "make resolutions" or "set goals" for the upcoming year.

Bah Humbug!

I am neither a big fan of making resolutions or setting goals these days.  That is something for the CEO's and industry leaders of the world to do.  Time has taught me that my ability to maintain my New Year's resolutions last about as long as a Hollywood wedding.  As for any glittery goal I set for myself it usually only takes until sometime the next morning when the fog of the previous nights journey into champagne gets lifted and I "get real" and tell myself to not waste too much time on it.

With some reflection it turns out that my major problems with the whole New Year's resolution is two pronged:

  1) I hate having to feel obligated to resolve to do anything just because some old timey calender makers thought it would be a good thing to do. 

  2) I usually fail at my resolutions. 

Who decided that the new year starts on January 1st?  I am sure with some minor Google searching I could find the answer...but I don't even care enough to try and impress you with that.   Why can't the new year start on October 1st?  Or April 18th?

Or for that matter...why can't the new year start on Saturday, June 25th? 

I see no reason why in the hell it can't!  Because for all practical purposes it feels like tomorrow is the beginning of a new year since it our last year of our 2011 Adams Camp experience.

I think that The Roedel calender year should run from June 25th, 2011 to June 24th, 2012.  We have been coming to this camp for the past eight years and it turns out that more and more every year our calender planning begins and ends with the dates of Adams Camp.  Tomorrow marks a new year and a new beginning for our family.  The thought of celebrating tomorrow as my new years day makes me a helluva lot more excited than the one on January 1st.

So as of right now I am making it official....June 25th is the NEW new year.  This NEW New Year begins as my family begins it's journey back home and back into the complications of the real world.  The NEW New Year will start with a family with recharged batteries and a fresher perspective as they continue their adventures inside the spectrum of autism.

Since that is the case that means that tonight is my New Years Eve party.  I will be celebrating in a way different manner than I did those many years ago in that townhouse.  Instead of being surrounded by my drunken friends who smelled like cheap beer I am surrounded by the sounds of my family snoring in the next room.  Instead of listening to the sounds of Michael Stipe shouting the chorus to "The end of the world" I am listening to the sounds of animals scrambling around in the dark outside our cabin and the clicking sounds of my fingers on the keyboard.  Instead of dancing up and down to celebrate the excitement of a new year I am going to spend my time in hope that I may take the lessons I have learned up here and apply them to my life.

Instead of making a flip resolution like I did back in 1993 I will make one that carries serious weight.

While I may be the only nutcase up here at Snow Mountain Ranch who may be changing his calender and making  his tomorrow New Year's Day.  I can assure you I am not the only parent making a resolution for the upcoming year.  There are many of us up here on the mountain resolving to keep fighting for our children's future despite the many obstacles placed in our way.  There are many of us up here on the mountain resolving to keep finding new ways to prove to a jaded world that our children are not in fact broken...that they deserve as much dignity as any other person on this planet.  There are many of us up here on the mountain resolving to keep our hearts open and to not let ourselves be swallowed by the hurt or the fear.

We resolve to keep showing up everyday and trying to be the best parent to a child living with autism as we possibly can be. 

As for me...I resolve to quit "time traveling".  To quit going back in time and reliving past griefs...and to quit going forward in time to stress over future worries.  I resolve to be an ambassador to the present.  I resolve to give "the now" a chance.  I resolve to make this "New New Year" the best ever.

5....4....3.....2....1!!!!

HAPPY NEW NEW YEAR!!

This is the new year.......a new beginning....I made a promise.....





My long week of blogging comes to an end here.  For those of you who stuck through these often long ramblings I am very grateful.  I would ask that you pray for the families that came to gather under the sun at Snow Mountain Ranch here in Winter Park, Colorado.  I have seen so much courage in the face of suffering that I am so humbled by how well other people carry their particular crosses compared to how I do.  Please pray for the tens of millions of people worldwide who are affected by Autism.  Pray for their families...pray that the world may understand them and to not view them as broken. 

Someday the world will figure out that this is a true epidemic.... 1 in 110 children.....1 in 70 boys....and the rate is growing every year.

Pray.

Adams Camp 2011