The Cliche New Years Day Post

I don't really do New Year resolutions.*  In life I'm generally an optimist but something about making a list of difficult to achieve goals and then setting out to reach them in the middle of cold, often dreary, January brings out the pessimist in me (or as my husband would say, the "realist").

This year I'm going to make a compromise and go with an (admittedly) cop-out of a resolution.**  Something along the lines of "this year I will love myself/accept myself/not criticize myself more".   But seriously, sometimes I beat myself up about the things I am not good at for little reason more than that my lacking in certain areas makes my life less of the storybook ideal life I'm sold by the world around me.

Are you still with me? Or have I lost you?   Let me try to explain a little bit more.

I've always been a person that has a few precious friends rather than many good friends.  Those friends that are dear are the ones who accept and love the things I'm good at and forgive or overlook the things I'm not.

I'm good at:
1- Being loyal.  I love my people fiercely and will defend them often regardless if they are wrong or right.
2 - I'm funny. I love to laugh and to make people laugh with me.
3 - I'm friendly.  I love to be with people - to enjoy the company of just being together. I love to learn more about others and connect with them on common grounds.

I'm not good at:
1 - Phone calls.  Making phone calls, returning phone calls, listening to voice mails.  I am not a phone person.
2 - Listening.  I get easily distracted.  If there is anything else at all going on it difficult for me to concentrate and hear what someone is trying to tell me.
3 - Jealousy (or rather I am good at jealousy, unfortunately).  I often get that sting of jealousy and I let myself do things/say things/ manipulate things in a way that isn't helpful or kind.

The fact that I suck at keeping in touch on the phone means that many of my old friendships drop away after time.  But there is little I can probably do to change that.  And so I need to accept that and not feel disheartened when I see FB pictures of old friends that are still close after all this time.  Its ok.  I need to be ok with that.

The fact that I get jealous means that I probably am not meant to be part of a large group of friends.  There is a group of girls from our last post who are very, very close and are always up to something fun and (at least to the FB world) glamorous.  Every time I have the evidence of this group's closeness put in my face on FB I feel sad and rejected.  But in reality I don't fit in there.  My world isn't my friends. I love my friends, I'd do anything for my friends, but my world is my family.  This is right and this is good and I need to accept that and the fact that especially because of number 1 and 3 in my "not good at column" above I won't ever be part of a group of girls like that.

I want to find peace and joy in the friends God has blessed me with in this life.  The fact that I still maintain a handful of best friends even though I'm cussin' awful at phone stuff.    Friends that appreciate my loyalty and love and my awesome sense of humor ;)

And if you're reading this thank you for being a friend to me wherever you fit in on the friend spectrum. Bosom buddy, old pal, new acquaintance, dedicated workout pal, sweet neighbor or random person that friended me once on fb and now doesn't know how to get rid of me.  Thank you.  And may you also find peace and joy in this life you've been given in 2014.


*Maybe my resolutions should be going back to English class and studying punctuations and possessives.  Is it new year's resolutions? New Years' resolutions? New Years's resolutions (kidding on that one).
**Ok fine, I'll admit it.  I also want to cut sugar out of my diet and be on Facebook less.   Dangit I didn't escape the resolutions' siren call.  Oh, and I want to blog more.   I hear that to be a successful blogger you need to have great pictures so here is a random picture that has nothing to do with the above blog post to send you on your merry way.  Look at this sweet Christmas morning hair.