The new year is upon us

Most years, New Year's eve is kind of lame for me. It's typically me, the dogs, a bottle of sparkling grape or apple juice, the tv on, trying to stay up to watch the ball drop. Many times I do not make it. I fall asleep about 5 minutes before the ball drops and wake up 5 minutes into the new year. This year, I really did want to make it to midnight and celebrate it in full fashion.

Instead of my usual solitude, New Year's eve was spent with my neighbor. Her adult boys were on a road trip to Chicago, so it was just her, her husband (absent most of the evening), me, her dog Syd, and Tovah. I made egg rolls, bought some cookies, and a bottle of wild berry spumante (yum!) for me since I typically do not drink. The evening was spent chatting, watching The Proposal, a nice light-hearted romantic comedy film with Sandra Bullock. It was between that and Precious which I felt was just "too heavy" for a New year's eve gathering. After that, we played Wii bowling. This was my first time playing any Wii game, and it was kind of fun. In th real world, I suck at bowling, but in the Wii virtual world, I was pretty darn good, getting 4 strikes, some spares, and winning. (not that that was important)

We turned the tv back on about 5 minutes before the ball dropped, and we all made it until midnight and toasted to a new year. It was a pleasant evening.

My neighbor also brought up some other heavy duty stuff. Awhile back, I posted about learning about my neighbor. She told me she got in touch with her insurance company, a psychiatrist (hasn't called back yet), and received the authorization to go into rehab to kick her alcohol problem. She feels like this is the only way she can get a grip on it. She wants to and knows she has to. She knows she is depressed, doesn't have much energy, appetite, and on a subconscious level, I think she realizes she is simply missing out on life.

The nice thing is that I do believe she has support from her family. I know her sons do put their feet down on some things, like buying her cigarettes. I'm not quite sure where everyone stands on the alcohol issue though. In any case, I hope she can make this year the year to get help with her alcohol, and in the process deal with other issues in her life.

As for me, I haven't thought heavily about 2011 yet. I do think I need to put some goals in place. I'm not floundering or anything, but there's been some "lost" feelings in there too. More on that in another post.

To end this positively, I do hope all of you have a wonderful, successful, happy year--a year with joy, peace, recovery, care, love, and the ability to heal.