Prune Juice Before Midnight

People have been telling me my whole life that I’d make an excellent 85-year-old, and frankly, they weren’t wrong. Even in my twenties, my idea of a raucous New Year’s Eve was a two-person rebellion against everything fun. While the world staggered toward midnight clutching cheap champagne, I’d be toasting with Prune de la Prune—prune juice in a champagne flute, chilled to the brink of respectability.

My date and I would nibble homemade walnut bread thick with organic peanut butter and a polite ribbon of honey, the kind of snack that whispers, “We’re better than everyone else.”

And then—lights out at nine. Because nothing thrilled me more than waking at five, smugly greeting the dawn like the early bird who not only gets the worm but probably lectures it on discipline. Even writing this gives me a warm, geriatric shiver of delight.