Weekly Prompt: Wow, What a Ride!

It’s the last night of the year, go out with a bag!

Welcome to the next weekly challenge for the monthly theme:

The aim this month is to celebrate all the important moments in our lives. Despite the challenges or because of them we need to celebrate.

​​“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

― Hunter S. Thompson

For the longest time New Year’s was my favourite night of the year

An eternal optimist, I saw it as an opportunity to do better, to renew and reinvent.

As well as time to party hard with my friends and partake in a bit of spirited recreational mind altering.

That kind of misspent youth evaporates when your first kiddie comes along.

I had many misspent nights around New Years, sneaking into inner city warehouse parties when I was thirteen with a thin moustache but adult sized limbs.

Flailing about and getting all sweaty to the thumping beats of Carl Cox.

If you’ve ever seen the film Human Traffic, we lived more than one of those scenes, never mind just absorbing a famous lines as one of our “get psyched” buildup.

“I said nice one bruvah!”

And the build up was often the best part. Hustling as a teen to get tickets, get “supplies,” organise lifts and misdirect the parents.

One New Years, this excitement got the better of me and as we drove through traffic as everyone hurried to their own parties or religious events we passed one of the largest churches in the area (in Africa actually).

As a rebellious and frankly stupid youth, I leaned out the window and shouted something derogatory.

It was the clearest occurrence of instant karma in my life.

We crossed the intersection.

I yelled the stupid thing.

We were in an accident 50 yards later.

I never did that again. Higher power or not, I learnt my lesson about being dick about other people’s chosen celebrations.

You like what you like. Have at it.

Looking back at all the hijinks, teenage angst about missing out on the party, setting it up, scheming, arriving, the big entrance to just the right song and the endless hours of dancing with random people I never saw again, I can only smile.

One year I woke up to soldiers holding AK 47s — apparently we’d stop to ask for directions at a military base. Sobering experience that was.

One year, on the come down I counselled my parents on their marriage wearing my father’s sunglasses and sweating balls in the summer heat.

One year my brother and I danced all night like best friends. One year I danced on tables during a cyclone in Mozambique. One year there was a roof top party. One year a forest party.

There was always music.

Now it’s not such a big night, partly because I see any moment as an opportunity to renew and reinvent. I don’t need a baptism by arcade fire or lazers.

But also because kids change the pace of things. I don’t celebrate New Years with them yet but I look forward to embarrassing them as my dad did me dancing like a fool at Hard Rock Cafe.

What’s your party story?

Challenge Requirements

Your story must:

1. Tells us a story about a character finding out who they really are.
2. Be 100 words exactly, excluding the title, subtitle, and any post-story bio / links. (We use Medium’s own word count feature.)
3. Be fictional, even if it includes factual information or concerns.
4. Use “New Years” as one of your five tags. We recommend Fiction, Flash Fiction and maybe your genre too. But it’s your choice.
5. Please, link back to the prompt so others can find it easily.