Ways to ring in the new year

There are about 100 ways to ring in the new year that I can think of without exerting too much energy that are better than the way I am this year. In a moment of NOT thinking clearly I picked up shifts at a group home  over the holidays which now I am regretting . I am away from my kids tonight to ring in the new year and I start out 2016 working on all my regularly scheduled days off. I hope I think more clearly as the year progresses and this is not an indication of the next 365 days. All work and no play makes me grumpy. 

Friendships

It must be because it is the end of the year that I am waxing nostalgic about friendships. It has been three years since my friend Ed passed away and two years that my aunt has been gone. I miss them both a lot and know that if they were still here we would still be close. Which got me thinking about peoplewho are still alive who have "fallen" out of my life. Some I miss, some I resent, but I wonder in friendships how much it is up to one person to maintain contact and reciprocity. The people who I am in contact with now all give to our friendships in some level or another. I consider myself a good and loyal friend but I wonder sometimes if some people would be around if it wasn't my reaching out to them that kept us together. Good friends are hard to come by. New friends are hard to make and some old friends are hard to keep. Sad really.