This will be our year

Photo: “Hope” by kevindooley

For the last few years, I’ve greeted the new year with relief … not so much a sigh of relief but more like an exhausted collapse.

My go-to song for the past few New Year’s Eves and New Year’s Days has been “What a Year for a New Year,” by Dan Wilson. Pretty song, and well-matched to that sense of exhausted relief I mentioned:

What a night for a sunrise
And we thought the dark would never end
Reaching out to try to find a friend
What a night for a sunrise
Sunrise

This year, I find a different song stuck in my head. It’s “This Will Be My Year,” again by Dan Wilson but with his band Semisonic. (Listen on last.fm)

Counting down from ten it’s time
To make your annual prayer
Secret Santa in the sky
When will I get my share

Then you tell yourself
What you want to hear
Cause you have to believe
This will be my year

Here’s the thing: I’m feeling more hopeful this year than I typically do. It’s not clear why 2010 looks brighter than past years have. I just have a sense the universe and I are heading in the same direction right now.

So why am I humming a dryly cynical song about self-delusion at the start of a new year?

This won’t do. I’ll do better to start the year with a theme song that is upbeat, hummable, and carries no whiff of cynicism. Have any suggestions?