New Years Again

The room spun in circles. My eyes blurred, welling up with fresh tears and blocking my vision of the room. My stomach twisted and churned, but my body seemed to hold still in a frozen stance, and nothing I seemed to do would allow myself to break free. 

“Arlo?” A voice echoed. “Arlo, can you hear me? Arlo, answer me!”

My lips started to tremble, the shaking spreading to the rest of my body. I tried to fight the quivering, but the more I tried to fight it, the stronger it felt. I noticed a bead of sweat drip down the side of my forehead, slowly sliding down my cheek and eventually landing on the table below me. 

“God, someone do something!” Another voice pleaded. “Call 911, make it stop, hurry!”

I ripped my arms from sides and pushed them up against my ears. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. I pushed harder and harder until the voices seem to slow, and then eventually disappear. My breath felt heavier and heavier. Each time I inhaled, a sharp pain in my chest stretched throughout my entire body. 

“Arlo, listen to me,” a high pitched voice screamed. “Arlo, can you hear me? Arlo, please!” The voice shook, pleading me to open my eyes. 

But I can’t. I can’t breath. I can’t hear. I can’t see. I am going to die.

Someone grabbed me by my shoulders and started to shake me vigorously. “Arlo, listen to me, please!” The voice cried, but I can’t. 

And suddenly, everything goes quiet. 

I wake up to the steady beeping of a heart monitor. I force my eyes open, and the first thing I see is the snow-white blankets of the hospital bed. I glance to my left and see a dimly lit screen, portraying a red line that seems to be jumping up and down with each breath I take. I turn my head as the door slams and a young woman with a lab coat and a clipboard walks into the room. 

“At the moment, everything seems to be completely fine. Your son is healthy, and after we ran a few tests, it seems to be that this situation was caused by a panic attack,” the doctor says. “As of now, we don’t know what it was caused by, but it might help to re-think what happened the day before the symptoms started.”

I take a deep breath, and force myself to look over at my mom who is sitting on a chair in the corner of the room. Her eyes are stained red, and she rests her elbows on her knees to prop herself forward. Her hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail, which is rare for my mother who always likes her hair to fall over her shoulders. 

“A panic attack? What do you mean?” My mom asks the doctor. 

“Usually a panic attack happens when an abrupt sense of fear reaches a peak inside of someone within a few minutes. Some very common symptoms are a pounding heart, sweating, and trembling, which were most of the symptoms you explained that Arlo had.”

My heartbeat monitor sped up and started to beep again. 

My mom gasped, and looked over at my bed. “Arlo!”

She stood up and ran to my side, holding my hand and hugging me tight. 

“Mom,” I gasped, trying to breath normally through her tight hug.

She let go. “Oh, sorry honey. I was just worried about you and I am glad that you are awake.”

I smiled slightly.

“Now that you are awake,” that doctor remarked, strolling over to her computer, “we need to go through the day to see what may have caused your panic attack.”

My heart dropped. Thinking about what happened made my head start to spin again, and my face turned white as a ghost. The heart monitor picked up speed, beeping rigorously again. 

“It is okay, you don’t have to be worried about anything right now,” the doctor said, coming close to my bedside to adjust the wires. As she leaned over my arm, I was close enough to read the nametag pinned to her coat. “Doctor Meinholz,” it read in black ink. 

“Arlo,” my mom uttered in a calm voice as she gingerly put her hand on my arm. “Is there anything significant that you remember from today that may have caused some fear or anxiety?”

I take a moment to think, trying to retrace my steps and remember what might have happened. 

“Maybe it will help for you to try and tell us your story of what happened today by starting at the moment you woke up,” Doctor Meinholz presumed. 

I leaned my head back on the hospital pillow behind me and thought my hardest to try and remember how my day started. Suddenly, a light bulb went off inside my brain and it all came rushing back to me. “Okay, so my day started when I woke up this morning at nine a.m…”

A buzzing sound woke me from my deep sleep. No, it was not my alarm clock, hence the fact that it was the middle of winter break and I did not have to go to school today. In fact, the buzzing noise was the vacuum running downstairs. 

“Mom!”I yelled, trying to talk over the deafening sound of dirt being sucked up through a tube. “Can you stop that?”

The vacuum stopped roaring, and I heard my mom’s footsteps stomping up the stairway. She opened my door and stood in the door frame with her hands on her hips. 

“Now that you are awake, you can help with the chores,”she exclaimed, leaving the room with a sigh. 

I groaned, and rolled over and out of bed, slowly stretching and running my hands through my messy hair. I eventually managed to walk downstairs, where I was greeted by a mountain of cleaning supplies lined up at the bottom of the stairs. Behind it, my mother held a spray bottle and roll of toilet paper, gesturing for me to grab a broom and dustpan. 

“Mom, are you serious?” I whined. “I do not want to spend my new years eve cleaning the house the entire day.”

“Arlo, you aren’t new to this. You know that every new years eve we polish the house to get ready for the new year. You should be happy! It is tradition.”

I plopped myself down on the stairs. “But why exactly do I have to participate?” I asked.

“Everyone is helping in one way or another. Look, even your sister is dusting the fireplace,” she said, pointing at my baby sister waving a dirty napkin around in circles. 

“Mo-m,” I complained. “What am I even supposed to do?” 

My mom grabbed a pair of gloves and handed them to me. “This year you’ll be in charge of dad’s job, which was taking out the Christmas tree and making some firewood. I think that you are old enough, and now that dad is gone we need someone to do it.” 

I glanced at the puny Christmas tree sitting in the corner of our living room, and then back down at the gloves. I grabbed them from my mom. “Fine,” I agreed reluctantly. “I’ll do it, but don’t expect me to like it.” 

I walked over to the tree, and slid the giant gloves over my small hands. I looked down at them, finding a sense of familiarity in the smooth black cloth. 

These were my dads gloves. I remember him grabbing the trunk of the tree with such ease, carrying it out the door as pine needles trailed behind him, leading a path outside to where he would chop it into a million pieces. I remember Isabel and I following his trail, giggling as we tried to gather the fallen needles, competing to see who would collect the most. I remember trying my best to help my dad lift the heavy tree, and his encouraging words giving me the strength to lift the tip off of the ground.

I hold back the few tears that cloud my eyes, and try and forget these memories that darken my mind. 

I grab the tree and carry it out the door, setting it down on a platform outside and start to chop sections off for firewood, slowly chopping and chopping, until the memories disappear from my mind. 

The hospital room is quiet except for the steady beeping of the heart monitor. 

“Is that all you remember?” Doctor Meinholz questioned, adjusting her glasses and taking notes on her clipboard. 

“I’m not sure,” I stuttered. “I’m trying to remember.”

“Well, its okay honey,” my mom said, rubbing my back. “You can try again later.”

“No, wait, I think I’m starting to remember a little bit more. Okay, so after I finished with my chores…”

I walked back into the house, abandoning my dirty boots at the front door and stripping my snow soaked coat off of my back. A smell of freshly baked cookies emerged from the kitchen. 

“Arlo, come into the kitchen and help me out for a second!” My mom called from the kitchen in a sing-songy voice. 

I sighed, and sauntered into the kitchen. As soon as I entered the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks. The counters were covered bottom to top in flour, dough stuck to almost all of the walls, and dirty dishes piled up in the sink. My mom, standing in the center of the room, wore a stained apron and was holding a metal bowl filled with what looked like a brown mixture of goop. She gave me a slight, worried smile. 

“Mom?” I asked. “What do you need?” 

She looked concerned, and gazed around the kitchen, trying to find something. Her eyes landed on a book covered in flour. “I need you to read that chocolate chip cookie recipe to me. I’m not totally sure if I’m doing this right.” 

I pick up the book and blow the flour off of the pages. It floats in the air and lands on the already - messy kitchen floor. 

“Okay, the first step says to -” 

I am cut off by the sound of my mom’s phone ringing. She pulls it out of her pocket, and sighs when she reads the caller number. 

“Can you finish this up for me?” She asks. “I have to take this call. I should be back soon enough.” 

“But Mom, I’m not good at baking.” 

She cuts me off. “Just follow dad’s recipe, it should be easy enough to follow.” Her phone rights for a third time, and she rushes off to take it. 

I flip through the pages, looking for the correct recipe. I finally landed on the right page, and start to read the directions. I run my hand over the paper, dusting off any excess flour, uncovering my dads scratchy handwriting. I find the number that my mom left off on and start from there. 

“Mix in chocolate chips, and voila! Your cookies should be ready to go! (Make sure to add in some extra love for an extra sweet treat!)” 

I read the directions, and smiled to myself. My dad always wrote his recipes with love and made them fun to read and follow. I remember each year, our tradition was to cook in the kitchen to prepare for when the family came over at night to celebrate the new year. He taught me how to bake. I remember as a little kid, he would make shapes out of the cookies to make me giggle. They would never quite turn out right, but it was the fun and memories that counted. 

I wiped a stray tear away from my cheek, and proceeded to add chocolate chips into the mixture and put the cookies in the oven. 

The timer beeped, and I slid a pair of oven mitts over my hands. I pulled down the oven door and took the cookies out. A fresh smell drifted from the oven to my nose. I inhaled deeply. The fresh smell of cookies always reminded me of the holidays. 

As I set the steaming hot tray on the counter, the doorbell rang. 

“I got it!” My mom yelled from across the room. 

I took off my oven mitts and went to go help the first guests with their coats. 

“Well, hello there!” My aunt called from the doorway. I smiled, and gave her a tight hug. “Look how you have grown since the last time I’ve seen you!” 

I laughed, and took her and my uncles coat from their hands to hang up in the entryway. 

Not minutes later, the doorbell rang for the second time. Standing outside were my grandparents holding two humongous gifts, and covered bottom to top in snow. 

“Happy late Christmas and Merry New Year!” My grandpa yelled, pulling me into a tight hug. 

I giggled as he ruffled my hair. 

“Come on, you guys!” My mom exclaimed. “Let's get into the kitchen so that we can start our resolutions!”

We all gathered into the kitchen, pulling up extra chairs and circling around the table. 

“Alright, let's start by drawing our resolutions from last year from the jar,” my grandpa sighed. 

This family tradition has been going on for as long as I could remember. Every year on New Years Eve, our family gets together to reflect on the past year and create new resolutions for the year to come. We gather around the kitchen table, and write plans and aspirations for the year to come on small strips of paper. We jot our name down on the back, fold up the sheet, and drop them into a clear mason jar labeled with the year. The next year, we draw our resolutions out of the jar and talk about how well we did at following our resolutions. 

This year, we start by drawing our resolutions from the year before. 

“Alright, who wants to go first?” My mom asks. 

My grandpa raises his frail hand and reaches into the jar, searching for his name. He finally pulls out a slip of paper with scratchy handwriting. 

“My resolution for this year is to reflect on how much I have, and how much I have to love, even though it may not be apparent to me at the time.” 

My grandpa laughs, a full, loving laugh, and looks around the table. 

“I love each and every one of you.” He sighs, and leans over to give my grandma a kiss on the cheek. “And I will never take this for granted.” 

We continued on, each taking a turn drawing a slip out of the jar. Finally, it came to be the time where we made our resolutions for the year to come. 

My mom handed a slip of paper to each family member, and I tossed around a few pencils. 

“Okay, everyone. It’s been a wonderful year with so much that we have all done and achieved. I know there were a lot of tough moments, and a lot of times that I knew made it hard for some of us to go on. Well, all of us.” 

My mom looked at me, with a slight tear in the corner of her eye. 

“This year, my husband, passed away.” My mom brushed away a tear from her cheek. “He was your father,” she said, gesturing to me and my sister, “your son,” she said looking at my grandpa, “and your brother,” she finished, talking to my uncle. “It has been an extremely hard year for all of us. But, I am so very proud of each and every one of you, for pushing through.” 

My mom put her hand on my shoulder, and squeezed lightly. “I know it was especially hard for you, Arlo. But I want you to know, that I am so proud of you. Every day.” 

I gulped, and held back my tears. I push away flashbacks from previous years, that show my dad and I, sitting around this same kitchen table. I feel my heart start to beat harder inside of my chest, and a throbbing pain emerges from my head.

My mom sniffs, forcing a smile. “It's going to be a new year. So it is time to make our resolutions. You guys know what to do.” 

She sits down, and everyone starts to work. The sound of pencils scratching on top of paper fills the room, but I can’t think straight. My head is spinning with thoughts and memories, clogging my brain with grief.

I feel my mom put her hand on my back. “Honey,” she starts. “Are you ready to write your resolution?”

I can’t force myself to pick up the pencil. “No,” I say.

My mom glances over at me with a worried look on her face. “What do you mean? What's wrong?”

I stare at the table, barely moving. All I hear is the scratching of pencil against paper. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. I can’t focus. “No,” I repeat.

My mom stands up and moves to kneel down beside me. “Arlo, write your resolution. This is our tradition, what's wrong?” 

“No,” I say. “No,” I repeat, louder and louder, trying to yell louder than the scritch scratching of the pencil. But its not working. The pencil is getting to be more and more, and I raise my voice even louder. “No!” I yell.

Suddenly, my mom is hovering above me, and my family is yelling even more. They surround me, talking, but I can’t hear the words that are coming out of their mouths. 

It goes quite.