No Descenders: Twenty Ten

Happy New Year (I know--kinda late)! I hope everyone had a fabulous and safe NYE. I've heard quite a few horror stories, from friends getting drugged to receiving DUIs. I got front row tickets to some of the NYE drama. I started out my night at work, where I usually am from 4 until midnight on Thursday nights. I got off fairly early, so I headed to a restaurant across the street from where I live. They were having a "private party," although it wasn't technically private due to some ABC regulation that requires you serve food (or something like that). I met up with one of my best friends, Rebecca, and my boyfriend who works there. I greeted some enthusiastic friends who were clearly already in the mindset that I had wanted to be in two hours before arriving and took a seat at the bar. We LOUDLY counted down to the new year--I had arrived just in time. We spent another hour there before deciding we wanted to check out how downtown was despite supposedly outrageous cover charges at most of the bars. We walked a half of a mile downtown because we knew Roanoke would be swarming with cops. As we rounded the corner to go into our first bar stop, we hear a girl screaming hysterically (re: front row seats to NYE drama). There's two guys crawling drunk all over the ground and attempting to swing at each other. Supposedly, the girl screaming hysterically started the whole mess by kicking the guy in the face with her high heels a few good times. I'm assuming the guy who was fighting the other poor guy was her boyfriend doing his "man duties." After all that, we finally get to the bar entrance and I realize I forgot my ID. They wouldn't let me in regardless of how many times I looked at them with my sad eyes. We moved on to 202 where my boyfriend knows a few people hoping we would be able to get in there. He checks my friend's ID,. She is a few years older than me, so I KNOW he's going to check mine. We'll skip the details, but I managed to get in and we had a GREAT time.

But, I've been thinking a lot about the things I want to change in 2010. As far as I can tell, 2009 wasn't a great year for a lot of people; in fact, it was pretty terrible. There were some parts of 2009 I really regret. I made a lot of mistakes and trusted too many people that I shouldn't have. But, when I really think about it, there were many truly amazing things that happened last year. I graduated from UNC despite a few things that set my progress back (the transfer, specifically). I moved to Dallas and lived on my own for the first time in a very big city. I had a great internship with The Dallas Morning News as a features designer for Guide Daily. I got a fantastic job AT A NEWSPAPER in a withering economy. I started over, moved on, and forgave. I met an amazing guy and made a lot of new friends. I also weeded people out of my life who brought nothing good to it. For me, the bad and the good things that happened in 2009 made it a year of substantial progress, and I do not look back on it as a "horrible year" as many people do.

Back to things I want to change. I want to stop trying too hard to please everyone around me at the expense of what I really want and need. I especially want to stop looking for acceptance and friendship in people I don't actually like (as silly as that sounds). This includes stopping caring what people think about me. I need to be more patient, more forgiving, and less quick to anger. don't want to be an "epic grudge-holder," as some people might call it. I must become more appreciative of the blessings in my life and the nice things people do for me. I REALLY have to be more careful with money and my shopping habits. I want to eat more salads and fewer hamburgers. I want to learn to cook--really cook. I plan on going to the gym more often. I'm going to stop obsessing about Maxine. She IS just a dog, and she can handle more than I tend to think she can. I AM doing a good job with her, and she's going to be a great companion.

I'm going to live one day at a time, and stop planning so obsessively for the future. As John Lennon would say, "life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans."