Auld Lang Syne

When I think of New Year's Eve, I think of sequence, champagne and soft lighting that makes us all look amazing - basically everything that TV and movies have shown us NYE should be.  This year, my group of friends decided to act like the grown ups that they are.  We all showed up in pj's, kids were running amok (I may have been with them through most of that...) and a bottle of pink sparkling wine later I had turned into that girl.  You know the one I mean - the crying one, sobbing because as the kids started to fall asleep and all of the couples paired up I realized I'd be one sitting alone, trying to grin as if none of it bothered me.  Yes my friends, I was that girl and I just couldn't do it.

With much protest from the girls, I packed up some of the junk that I'd toted in only a few hours before and with tears in my eyes, I headed home.  And now here I sit, at 11:56 watching Water for Elephants and blogging about my pitiful existence!  Good Lord, just shoot me now. 

As if spending New Year's Even alone isn't bad enough, stores are already putting out Valentine's Day stock.  Valentine's Day... the bane of every unattached person's existence. 

So suffice it to say, it is now officially 2012 and I can't say I'm sad to see 2011 go.  In 2012 though, I will resolve to like myself more.  I was talking to the mother of one of my dear, tragically flawed friends and I told her last week that he needed to like himself more.  Why is that advise good enough for other people, but not good enough for me?  Why don't I feel like I deserve the same thing?  Now, I won't say that I'll be satisfied with everything, or that I won't have a case of the mean reds every once in a while (yeah, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's the other night).  What I DO mean is that I won't skip on wearing a sleeveless shirt because I think my arms are too fat and I won't compare myself to other people... as much.  Maybe that is the key.  Maybe I have to like myself before someone else can.  Who knows...

Of course, as I'm now only 24 minutes into 2012, perhaps I can allow myself a few more hours of self-loathing.