Resolution to have a happy life

Happy New Year! I spent all day thinking I should post, but the couch was far too inviting. Thank God for these last two 3-day weekends. I went out with Becky Friday night and since I didn't get home til 3am I decided to lounge the day away. Tomorrow I will go into work and finish some things up, take my car to the car wash (horror!) and maybe get the oil changed if it is open Sundays. Things I should have done today. Oh well.

So 2006. What a year of change. I started out this year living comfortably (if not a little leary of things that could be crawling around the floor) in my concrete apartment, taking taxis, buses or my two good legs for transportation, watching Spanish infomercials and repeats of "Grounded For Life" on my wee-TV from a hammock in my living room, and trying to maintain a tan. No job, very little responsibility, and of course no oven. I think by January I didn't even have a stovetop anymore.

I also had a very nice network of friends. I had dinner friends and drinking friends, beach-going friends and friends with whom I ran errands. Though I hadn't known most of them for longer than a year, I think we all connected in many ways and I was enjoying what I knew was the end of my little journey.

In February I moved back to what was once my life here. Re-entry was a bit of a nightmare. Though I was employed within minutes, and had a place to stay and a car to drive, I found that I didn't have much else. My friends that I had left a little over a year before had moved on with their lives and though I knew that was okay, I realize now that if they were really my friends to begin with they probably wouldn't have moved on so FAR.

The months here have flown by. I find it difficult to believe I will have been back for a year at the end of February. I really don't do much besides plan my next vacation, and I have been lucky to have been able to go back 3 times since June, but that's fine with me because my apartment is nice and I have consistant cable and internet and so far I haven't lost water or power once. My friends are scattered around now, not as accessible as they were once, at least not in person. Friends here? Yeah, not so much. I keep hearing things that people (person) have said about me while I was gone, and I just don't get it. I know most people try to cover up their own miserable lives by ripping on others, that's easy. I just don't know what I ever did to have it done to me. But oh well. Whaddya gonna do.

One of my resolutions will be to just blow off the negative and concentrate on the positive. I was in a bar last night and one of the people I was there with was venting about a person I used to be really good friends with, and though I had nothing to contribute, I was a little sad that this person turned out to be as horrible as she is. Then my cell phone rang and it was Dave and Marita, in Wisconsin, drunk but very happy to hear my voice. Old Joyce would concentrate on the negativity of the old friend, but new Joyce is going to concentrate on the new friends, the positive people centered around her, wanting only her friendship in return for theirs. The way it's supposed to be. We are constantly demanded of so many things in our lives - jobs, family, bills- friendships should be uncomplicaed and happy. Happy friendships make happy lives and that is what I am going to have.