New Year's Resolutions

This post is a little early, but it's been floating around in my head for a while now. I've mostly just been waiting to get past the end of cyclocross and Christmas to put it out there. I have a couple of New Year's resolutions that I want to make, and I would appreciate any help that I can get from my dear readers. Here they are:

1) To increase both the quantity and quality of my friendships.

2) To cultivate interests outside of cycling so that I have other things to talk about with all of these awesome new friends.

Okay, so I feel like kind of a loser putting these goals out there for the world to see, but then there's that whole "admitting you have a problem" thing. Perhaps people will find my willingness to admit weakness endearing?

I keep seeing things about "meaningful relationships" being a key factor for both health and happiness in various articles that I read, and I usually feel like I'm lacking in that area. How did I find myself in this position? I guess the short version is that seven years ago I got married and moved to a new town where I didn't know anyone and proceeded to struggle with employment woes and general growing pains.  I was too focused on other things and never really made the connections that I should have.  Longtime readers will know a lot of that story, but even though I just rid myself of the latest employment woes a couple of months ago (and learned some important lessons for the future in the process), I feel like I am finally starting to get things figured out in terms of who I am and what I want.

I have made peace with my decision to pursue a career that requires me to spend my days behind a desk working on things that I'm not particularly passionate about (as long as I don't let my overly competitive self start taking it too seriously). It's a perfectly acceptable way to pay for the things I do care about, and I get 36 PTO days and 9 paid holidays a year on which I can sneak away for more fun stuff. The downside of this is that I spend my days surrounded by people with whom I have nothing in common except for the desire to get paid so we can do more fun stuff, although we have very different opinions about what is considered fun. Compare this to my husband's situation where everyone he works with presumably likes bikes, and now he's at the point where he can pretty much chooses his coworkers, and you can imagine how he spends his days in more socially stimulating environment than I do. I've come to the conclusion that I need better relationships outside of work to look forward to and make getting through the daily grind a little more tolerable.

As far as cultivating interests outside of cycling, I feel like this is a result of taking my training way too seriously for too long. For a few years, I felt like I was a slave to my training plan, and spending time on other things was just a distraction. I've since come to see it in a more realistic light, and realize that path is not what's going to make me happy. So I've come to terms with the idea that missing a workout, eating an unhealthy meal, or staying up past my bedtime could actually be better for my well being sometimes, if it's for the right reason. Now I'm just looking for a reason. I could definitely use some suggestions for new interests to explore, and preferably a companion with which to explore them.

So now is where I ask for help. I love all my cycling friends, but I feel like I don't really know people as well as I could. In this "off season", rather than just disappearing for the winter and posting pictures of ourselves riding trainers on Facebook, I would like to try to see people and maybe even do non-cycling things. So if you're doing something fun, I'd appreciate an invitation. If you don't live nearby, but need someone to talk to or just want to say hi, hit me up on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever; I'm not hard to find. I'll do my best to try and initiate more contact, as well.