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.