Start the new year 'trashed'

Janus isn’t my trash man, but he should be.
Janus is the two-headed Roman god of doors, and January, supposedly, is his month.
The basic concept is easy, even for those who never took Latin: here we are, at the end and the beginning, and it’s time to make a choice.
On one side is the past – a calamitous year for many, and on the other side is, at the very least, the hope that things will be better.
Seems like an easy decision.
And God bless those who can take such a sanguine, philosophical look at life. All praise to those who can simply turn the page on their life and start anew, even if they don’t manage to actually pull it off by year’s end.
As for me, I can hardly get to the front door, much less the New Year, for all of the junk.

Maybe junk is too strong a word, too negative: call my end of the year condition instead, a mess, an accumulation, a disarray or disorganization.
For me, and I suspect for many others, the year doesn’t build to a crescendo and then refresh itself to the accompaniment of French Horns. Rather the year is a runaway train that only stops its squealing when it leaves the track and crashes head on into a concrete abutment.
Again, I have to say that I know it’s possible that there are those who have everything together: on the day after Christmas they have already taken the tree down, written their thank-you notes, and are enjoying a Pina Colada on the Tahiti deck of the Enchantress of the Seas as it purrs out of Miami Beach.
Happy New Year indeed!
But for me, I’m still stuck on the ‘pooped’ deck as the year ends.
Once again my December didn’t follow a clear, well-lit path to an impressive solid oak door with a carved alabaster knocker in the shape of a god’s head. My year ran amok, like a coed fleeing from an ax murderer, emptying her pockets as she fled.
2005 steamed through spring, lost its breaks in the summer, careened madly through the fall, before finally crashing down December’s aisles.
Consequently, I don’t have a clear view of the future. Instead, I have a house full of empty packages, torn wrapping paper, old toys, old Sports Illustrated magazines, and discarded computer peripherals.
To make matters worse, the really old junk – the allegedly important papers and designated ‘collectibles’ that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away last year at this time, were recently moved from their normal piles to free up a sleep sofa or otherwise help establish the illusion that our home was safe for the annual influx of relatives.
If there is a door here someplace, I can’t find it, much less squeeze through to a hopeful future.
My future is on hold until I can get to the dump.

Is there a patron saint of landfills, and a special prayer to invoke her blessings?
Is there a father of waste incineration with his own plaque in the town square?
Is there a Rufus Refuse comparable to Dewey Decimal, or a biodegradable Roman god of trash?
There should be, there must be: there will be.
My path to the immediate future – and probably the paths of millions just like me, cannot be navigated without first dredging the muck from the channels of the recent past.
And considering the amount of trash American’s generate, the first Monday after New Year’s Day should be declared a national holiday.
Trash Day?
Incineration Day?
Dump Yours Day?

Whatever, let’s party at the dump!
Let’s take all of last year’s excess and compact it down into a manageable bale.
Let’s break a bottle of champagne over a brand-new dump truck, and bang pots as 2005 is hauled away.
Let’s sing and dance on the top of the landfill mountain until we can hardly stand, then drive home in the dark and point out the shooting stars that are the embers of a year of waste sent up the chimney like a prayer toward heaven.
Lord let me make it to the New Year, and let me be able to tell when it arrives.