The endings

New Year's Eve, although I've always enjoyed it in good company, always fills me with a certain unease. Since we've been celebrating at home for decades, I can't attribute this unease to what happens outside—this absurd and tacky mix of sequined dresses bought at Temu, excessive alcohol, ghostly figures, exorbitantly priced menus, and TV programs you don't know which one to watch.

The disquiet that overwhelms me on New Year's Eve is personal and has to do with my fear of endings. The longer it goes on, the more afraid I get. As Antònia Font said, when you get older... Life is a place full of endings It becomes increasingly evident.

The most terrible and destabilizing endings, of course, are the deaths of people you love, even those of acquaintances your age or younger, and sometimes even the dramatic death you hear about of someone you don't even know. Every death is an ending, a hard blow that reminds you that life is fragile.

But jobs you enjoyed also end, or the novel you've been writing for a year and a half, or a friendship you thought would last forever. The end always awaits you, like a real threat, while you're listening to a beautiful song or watching a film that moves you or when you're reading a book you know will stay with you.

I would say that there are more happy endings in fiction than in life (I would say, but I'm not sure, because they happy ending They are not well regarded, especially in literature. However, when in theater, film, or books the author has the audacity to imagine a happy ending, it is never entirely so. We, the spectators or readers, always have the right to ask ourselves: yes, the story ends well, but what will happen tomorrow? Will the best love stories manage to survive cohabitation?

The holidays, summers, snowfalls, sea swims, sunsets, good meals, pleasant conversations, nights outdoors, and spontaneous laughter all come to an end. The days you lived with joy, the weeks you worked well and with enthusiasm, the months you saw a child born or took the trip you always dreamed of, all come to an end.

And the years also come to an end, and faster and faster. And, as if you hadn't lived stressed enough, they expect you to end up tense enough to swallow twelve grapes to the rhythm of the chimes. And you don't have to choke, and if you manage it, you should be ready to wish everyone a Happy New Year right away.

I'm increasingly convinced that this whole charade—the chimes, the grapes, the toasts, and the kisses—is part of a distraction tactic to avoid thinking about the year that's ending—about everything we've left unfinished, what we've lost or gained, the problems, or perhaps to avoid thinking about the year ahead, which will demand as much or even more from us than the last.

Be that as it may, with this unease, let's prepare to say goodbye to this strange, even hostile, 2025, and welcome with open arms this 2026, which we can now, for a few hours, imagine as peaceful, fun, compassionate, and better.