zestfully refreshed!

Ahhhhh!!! Peace at last! It's a Friday night and I have a near negative bank account balance. My car is almost on empty and I am quite content. I have a fabulous new hair cut compliments of Calie McGee. My hours are being cut at work, not too much though. I've stressed to them how important it is for me to be able to pay my bills. Thats where the trouble started last year.

Actually the trouble started last year when I arrived home from New Orleans. That's the time when Ryan and I started fighting and then little Andrew and I stopped being friends. Then my hours got cut and I couldn't pay my bills which made my dad angry and he started calling me and yelling at me every day. Then Ryan dumped me because I was a giant loser, to paraphrase him. And I still didn't have a car so I was single, friendless because even Holly wouldn't answer my calls, my dad hated me, and broke with no way to go anywhere. The months following mine and Ryan's break up was easily the lowest I've ever been. It was as if anything bad that could happen did happen and all at once.

But eventually, and painfully slowly I might add, things began to turn around. I got more hours at work so I could start paying my bills which got my dad off my back. I let myself be consumed with Lost so my heart didn't hurt so much thinking about Ryan. I even started dating a little, not seriously because I won't ever be in love like that again. I even finally bought a car.

Not to say everything is now perfect and dandy. Because surely it's not. While I do have a car, it runs about half the time and I have to bang it for it to even start. I still scrape by with my bills especially now since my hours got cut again. I cut myself off from the closest thing I'll probably ever have to a boyfriend again.

I guess the difference is it's 2011. It's a fresh new start. And I thought it would be poetic justice, I guess, to end the shitfest year of 2010 that started in New Orleans to also end there. So when everyone bailed for this reason and that and I thought I had no way down there to visit Veronica and I gave up hope for one second. But Veronica was so upset that I promised her I would find a way to her. So I pretty much all but solicited myself on FaceBook, Craigslist and Couchsurfing and finally found a ride down with a minister from Michigan off of Craigslist. Long story short: I had one of the best weekends of my life and a brand new start to 2011.

I came home feeling like I did when I came home from Europe. Proud and accomplished to actually have done it, relieved to finally be home, and happy that I went on any adventure at all. But I know all too well that this feeling doesn't last, it fades and with the snow and cold it may fade fast. So I'm trying to hold on to it. To embrace the newness of the New Year and remember how lucky I am and to refuse to back down when it feels like everything is going the other way. My trip to New Orleans taught me that I can do it and dang it, if I try hard enough I actually will!

Stay fresh, folks.