New Year. New Day. Now What?

It’s Rosh Hashana.

Many of us all over the world are celebrating the New Year, welcoming in what we hope and pray is a festive and sweet time ahead. To kick off that sweetness, we dip our apples in honey. We drink wine. We celebrate with people who matter most to us. We want them to have all the blessings, too.

This holiday falls during what has always felt to me like the kick-off of everything new and everything possible. Rosh Hashana typically falls in September, the month when, as kid, I would go back to school. And that annual ritual involved the joys of not just a new homeroom teacher and a new grade, but, also, new clothes and the intoxicating smell of new school supplies. My new backpack would be stuffed with new #2 pencils, new spiral wide-ruled notebooks and, of course my new Trapper Keeper®.

In the two weeks leading up to that first school bell, I could barely contain myself, staying awake at night thinking about what new outfit I’d wear on that first day, not to mention which boys I’d have my first school year crushes on. In my new Chandler’s planner, before I’d write out all my new assignments, new friends’ phone numbers and birthdays, I’d first fill in all my contact information. Flipping through the clean, fresh and wide open calender pages, I’d imagine all the magic that could happen over the next nine months. This academic anticipation lasted all way through graduate school.

Anything was truly possible.

But September was never limited to just the new school year. No. In Fall, my favorite television shows would resume seasons. In the ’80s, this list included The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Dynasty (on Wednesdays), Miami Vice (on Fridays), Knight Rider, The Golden Girls, Who’s the Boss, Silver Spoons and even The Greatest American Hero.

In the ’90s, which shifted from family-themed sitcoms to the singles of New York, who couldn’t wait for Seinfeld and Friends? The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Simpsons, Frasier and Rosanne dominated the prime time and on Saturday mornings we had Saved by the Bell. Of course, every Gen Xer who grew up on our parents’ admiration of Dynasty (or Dallas) was addicted to Beverly Hills 90210, a modern soap opera about people our age adjusting to high school in an exclusive neighborhood and, eventually, college and the grown up responsibilities of life.

During those two decades, every first episode of every season of every show kicked off a new story arc and, sometimes, a new character. We not only enjoyed watching these people play off of each other and make us laugh, but, also, their adventures, especially as we grew older, began to mirror ours. With every new September, we couldn’t wait to see how the previous April or May cliffhanger would play itself out on screen. Sometimes we were surprised. Sometimes disappointed. Just like we would be with our school year, depending on classes, teachers, classmates and romantic interests.

In addition to a new academic cycle and new TV schedule, Fall would also showcase the new fashions. While in high school, I couldn’t wait to get the new issue of Seventeen Magazine. The glossy would be filled with pretty girls wearing pretty clothes. The pages within also contained numerous quizzes, usually about boys, but, also, about friendships. There would also be advice about how to makeover your room, keeping in mind that it was still your parents’ home and that you were high school girl, probably with a part time babysitting or retail job. I loved seeing what celebrity would give Seventeen her interview or appear on the cover. Whether Whitney Houston or Helena Bonham Carter or Jennifer Connelly, I felt like by the time I’d finish reading each issue, I was BFFs with the young starlet.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, I also became obsessed with the British Magazine The Face, which was all over pop culture, from a European point of view. Expensive, printed on a distinct paper and not readily available in the States, I needed something more consistent and subscribed to Interview, started by Andy Warhol. While both filled my glee over all things music and movies, it was the fashion magazines, like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, that with the August issue, would signal and drive not just the fashion trends of the forthcoming year, but, also, the tone. When, back in 1991, Bazaar went from the loud and proud big clothes and hair of the 80s to the heroin chick, subdued grunge influenced minimalism of the new decade, every kid in suburbia followed, with a flannel shirt – designer or otherwise.

I loved staying on top of all this. I loved the newness of each year. I loved that a new 365 day cycle around the sun not only coincided with my people’s New Year, but, also, that school, television and fashion all lined up perfectly together to march forward, in one beautiful and in-sync rhythm.

This perfect cadence propelled me. Mostly, it fueled me. Every year, something new was waiting for me. All I had to do was pay attention and join the parade. Some years, I even led it. A few years, I felt like I was all the way in the back, panting to catch up. But every year, I was in that parade, which began in September.

After I graduated from b-school in 2003, and moved from Rochester to Cleveland, during the holy week between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I gave myself yet one more fresh start: new city, new apartment and new job. Lots of opportunities to make new friends, meet new men and take in the energy of a new location. And for several years after, around Fall, I’d either move into a newer apartment or navigate into a new job position within the company. Like clockwork, each new September brought with it a new dimension, clearing out whatever was for whatever was supposed to be.

In Fall of 2005, I took my first overseas trip, to my hometown of Kiev, Ukraine. The following fall, I flew to London, England, as part of a work assignment. In Fall 2007, I booked a round trip ticket to Madrid, Spain, to visit my wonderful friend Gabi. For three years in a row, each Autumn provided tremendous opportunity to see a new corner of the world.

And, then, something began to change. Television shows began to break from the traditional seasons, some starting in January, while others in summer. Some would begin a new season before a full year was even over. If, during past decades, a TV show’s number of seasons indicated the number of years it was on, this no longer held true. My favorite shows of the ’00 decade, The Sopranos and Sex and the City, would sometimes have mini seasons and sometimes take a year before reappearing. The same with Mad Men, which, launched in 2007, is an era-defining show, set in another era. And, as with most series produced in this decade, doesn’t follow your typical Fall to Spring season.

When I bought my house in 2008 – moving in right before Rosh Hashana – and went into self-employment a few months later, the seasonality began to further dismantle. Sure, there was snow to shovel and leaves to rake, but what was there to look forward to after those leaves were raked, bagged and put away? Each Fall began to blur into the next.

Granted, as I started teaching, this shifted, but only slightly, and it was students’ turn to learn, to stretch and to grow. My spiral notebooks had been replaced by their computer ones. It was their time. Mine had moved from a Chandler’s to a Day Planner to Microsoft Outlook to my iPhone iCal.

So what happened to my time? What happened to my newness? What happened to that parade?

Each Fall, as Rosh Hashana has come and gone, I have been fortunate to celebrate and welcome in the New Year with either close friends or family or both. But, as most of the people who I first met in Cleveland and with whom I formed very strong bonds, have, for graduate school or for work, uprooted to either coast or to my hometown of Chicago, even the joy associated of ringing in the specialness of opportunity has begun to lose its luster.

Perhaps this is all a reflection of getting older? I’m not sure.

What I do know is that I miss those friends. I miss my travels. I miss my Seventeen Magazine. I miss my Trapper Keeper. Mostly, what I miss is the anticipation of what’s new.

Fall, September and Rosh Hashana used to do that for me. Instead, the past four years have felt more like Groundhog Day.

Perhaps, there’s some karma I still need to fix. Perhaps I haven’t really completed Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s The Five Stages of Grief, which some say Groundhog Day is based on? Perhaps, that internal September clock is within my reach, after all?

Logically, I fully comprehend that living in some nostalgic notion of the past is not only tragic, but so very Russian. At most Russian dinner parties, people begin their conversations with “Ti pomnesh kogda…” (“You remember when…”) But if you ever met them at the time of the past they’re so joyfully discussing, they’d clearly be reflecting on a time even before that.

Woody Allen brilliantly illustrated this theme of false nostalgia in 2011’s Midnight in Paris. There’s a reason why, watching it for the second time, in my Film Appreciation class this past summer, I really fell in love with that movie: I knew the protagonist! Owen Wilson’s Gil tries to write the perfect novel and is convinced that 1920s Paris would have been the perfect time to do that. One night, walking alone in the City of Lights, a vintage car pulls over and the colorful characters inside invite Gil to join them. He finds his parade, but instead of marching forward, it takes him to the past and Gil is transported into 1920s Paris. His journey is remarkable, lovely, anguished, funny and wise.

In one insightful Woody Allen line that Owen Wilson delivers in his perfect Allen impression, he states, “That’s what the present is. It’s a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.”

Maybe that’s the answer? To accept that the reality – of a new year or a new day – will be less satisfying that its anticipation? That doesn’t seem very hopeful to me, especially during Rosh Hashana.

Perhaps there’s still parade, after all? Perhaps it’s new and has been patiently standing there, all this time, ready to go? Perhaps it’s waiting for us to lead, because it doesn’t know how to begin? I don’t know. But I know this. I miss my rhythm. And I’m very, very good at rhythm.

The parade? It’s the bridge between anticipation and satisfaction.

Time to start marching.