I am spending New Year's Eve alone.  By choice.  And I am feeling pretty comfortable with it, even though people are now posting on Facebook the exciting things they are doing tonight.  But I know that it's just my FOMO, (fear of missing out), that is making me feel that way.   This is an important night for me.   It's a symbolic start to a year of being with myself and sitting with the loneliness of not having a "significant other".  I have pledged to be relationship free for one year, no matter what.  Not interested or open to any romantic attachments.  It's probably the most important thing I will do for my own mental health and spiritual growth.   So on this night of high expectations to spend it with friends and party hard, I am opting out.  I am here at my computer, playing sad love songs, eating almonds and watching the candle burn down the past year.  Sound pathetic?  It's not.  It's healing, and empowering.   Later I will watch some really crappy YouTube videos or a silly movie.   I will smoke a bit of pot.  I will feel all there is to feel.  I might colour.  I might have a hot bath. At midnight I will go outside and walk the dog and listen to the neighbourhood.  But I won't indulge in regret or self pity.  I am done with that.  The choices I have made in my life have brought me this far, and created this person I am, and I am okay with that.  

A friend of mine said each New Year she chooses a word to symbolize the coming year.  I really like that idea.  I don't make resolutions anymore.  They are just set ups for disappointment and shame.  But to have a word that expresses what I want to focus on just makes sense to me.  And I think, in keeping with my feelings expressed in the previous paragraph,  my word will be friendship.  Friendship.  That's a word that gets bandied about as much and as disrespectfully as love.  Friendship.  So easy to use that word.   Hey friends!  Tell your friends!  Why can't we be friends?  What does it mean though, really?  That's something I need to learn about.  I am good at being friends, but not as good as I could be.   I tend to take my friendships for granted and I will let them fall away if the other person doesn't help to keep it connected.  I want to change that.  I want to be a good friend, have meaningful connections.   And connections that aren't based on my need to vent, or be supported through a tough time with whoever I am in love with at the time.  My friendships need to be more meaningful, deeper, more sharing.   I need to work on being more loyal and forgiving.  And more open to receiving, to letting my friends care for me, and come in to my heart.  That's a hard thing for me.  It's a vulnerable, scary place to let someone in.  And right now, it's also a raw and broken place. My social anxiety mars my friendships with insecurity and self doubt.  So afraid I will turn them off, chase them away, not be the person they thought I was. I need to let go of that.  Believe I am lovable.

I am wishing everyone who reads this a truly blessed year ahead, may you have the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Oh the Weather Outside is....Delightful

I want snow!  I know, I am a crazy person, and most definitely in the minority.  But I really do.  For many reasons, the least of which is the approaching Yule.  First of all, usually when there is snow, there is also sun.   Not warm sun, but illuminating, brilliant, need your sunglasses sun.  And the world looks cleaner and brighter under a blanket of snow.   I love the smell of it, the feel of it crunching underfoot and I even love the challenge of driving in it.  I don't have to shovel it, living in an apartment as I do, but I never really minded that either.  I love bundling up in sweaters and being cozy at home.  I love sitting in front of my window at night, or better yet going out for a walk when the snowflakes are falling thick in and lazy on a silent night.   There are drawbacks of course, as there is in just about everything in life, but for the most part snow is my friend. We need the cold temperatures and the snow.  The trees are confused and budding,  the birds don't know what to do, people are getting sick because germs are not being killed off by the cold and the fluctuating temperatures making it challenging to know how to dress.   And having it at this time of year makes the Yule season much more bearable.  So LET IT SNOW!!  

This year, more than other years I am not feeling the Christmas spirit.  And it's more than just the weather.  I usually go kicking and screaming in to the season, but eventually I come around and get in to it.   I refuse to even discuss Christmas before December 1.  I am not Christian and even if I was our society does not promote that aspect.  And I am not a consumerist.   Christmas baffles me.  I don't know why we continue to put ourselves through it.  And I say it that way because the whole attitude seems to be one of Christmas being a chore.   Almost everyone I know complains about it.  They drag themselves through their shopping.  They "have to get their baking  done".  They dread the coming visits with family.  So why do we do it?   We chase the carrot that the retailers dangle in front of us, telling us if we buy this gift, Christmas will be perfect.   And we buy more and more and more trying to recreate a magical thing that can't be bought.  If you ask anyone about their favourite Christmas traditions or Christmas memories very few of them will ever mention the gifts they got.   Most people will talk about the music, or the lights, or the time they spend with friends and family.  So why can't it just be that?  What would happen if everyone just decided to stop the insanity.  To take the parts of Christmas they cherish and stick with that?   Imagine it for a moment.  Doesn't it sound wonderful?  

I stopped the insanity a few years ago.  Now that I am a Unitarian my focus is on Solstice.  I don't have a tree.  I don't go crazy with gifts (having no money helps that) and I don't bake.  I look forward to spending time with my kids and grandkids and I like a good carol sing.   This year I didn't even decorate my apartment.   The decorations are still in the storage shed.  I spent a few days thinking I "should" go and get them and decorate.  But why?  I don't have visitors very often.  And for me, it's just trading one mess of clutter for another.  Too much work.  I enjoy other people;s lights on my nightly dog walk.  I can't eat any bakes stuff and I don't have a place to put a tree.  So...other than  wreath on my door I will just leave it at that.   And it's okay.

I invite anyone reading this to really think this holiday through and what it means to you.  Cut out the "shoulds" and hold on to the things you treasure and have a true, authentic celebration with those you love, be they friends or family.