New Year, New...Meh.

I remember, when I was a little girl, a time or two my grandparents had a get-together on New Year's Eve. It was just them, and a couple of neighbor couples, and snacks and boozy drinks and Trivial Pursuit, and that annoying, awkward little girl staying up 'way past her bedtime and annoying the grown-ups. These grown-ups were in their seventies, and no doubt had seen many, many old years die and new years born. I wonder now if they felt a thrill, a charge, a sense of relief of a bad year ending, or a sense of joy of a new year starting? Did they make plans and resolutions or goals? Or had they simply been around the block enough times that it didn't matter?

Guess I haven't hit that point yet.

On December 31, five friends came to my home and together, we watched a epic historical Chinese war film, and played games, and ate food, and drank champagne, and talked about nothing too major. Some of us had endured a pretty rough year, and at that late point in the game, there was no point in re-hashing old, painful ground. Together, we said good-bye to 2016, and helped 2017 be born. Whether we all had made goals and resolutions, I don't know. We didn't really speak of it, at least not too seriously. Perhaps most of us hadn't made any, or perhaps none of us felt comfortable enough yet to reveal those things to each other.

I know that I've been trying to ponder my goals and resolutions for a while now. There's so much in my life that will eventually need changing, and I really don't know where to start--particularly since I don't know quite what I want to change into. Professional ambitions, geographical desires, romantic interests; I am at sea when it comes to those. I simply don't know what I want. I'm just not there yet. And who knows? Maybe I'm not supposed to be, yet. Lord knows there are other things I need to be tending to. So while I don't have anything too earth-shattering planned out, I know what I need to tend to: I've got to get my health improved. I've got to get a place of my own. I've got to continue to spend time at the job that gave me my escape. I want to continue exploring my beloved state, ideally with the friends I am trying to bond with. And that's enough to be getting on with, at least for now. I suppose, in other words, now that I'm settled into my state, it's time to start reversing the damage I've done to myself over the last decade. And once I'm well on that path, I can start tackling the bigger stuff--start trying to find answers to the questions I'm not yet ready to ask.