2012 - A Year In Retrospect.

A whole year is a hard thing to remember and I needed a little help and being able to look back on a years worth of posts, is just one of the bonuses of keeping a blog. But to be honest, I didn't need to read back on past posts to know that 2012 has been a challenging year and it is hard to look back on it fondly. But I will do my very best.

The year started badly, coming down from a drug fuelled New Years Eve party, set me up for a bad few weeks of sleeping all day and being awake all night, alone with my thoughts, things got pretty dark sometime, which is what happens with me sometimes, like if I don't have anything to focus on, I get depressed. Early in January, was when I was arrested for assault and this would be saga that would continue for another 7 months. It would give me something to focus on but more on that later.

Things did start to improve with the onset of Spring but I was still taking drugs, socially and and at home and there was a time as the year went on, that I was eating to much and not getting enough sleep, drinking heavily at the weekends. Money was also tight and I had gotten myself into a debt cycle that seemed impossible to get out of .

Breaking my shoulder in September, seemed to be the EVENT of the year, the consequence. What everything that I was doing through out the year, was leading up to. Feeling that vulnerable and sorry for myself was the worst thing to happen to me this year, it felt like a perfect way to round out the rest of the year.

But in discussing the bad, I have to give time for the good. I made some awesome new friends this year and built on some the friendships I already had. I have an excellent social circle and some of the best friends anyone can ask for and for this I am very lucky. Our group camping trip being a perfect example of this, 2 days in Chester, spending time with my friends, talking about our lives, around a camp fire. Perfection.

The court case, came to a head in early August and it was a great day, to have my day in court literally. To have months of frustration and lies finally come to an end with my exoneration and to have my accuser be completely humiliated. Just from a learning experience perspective, the whole experience has made me more cautious but at the same time more confident.

The Summer brought on some new challenges too, positive ones. I had steadily gained weight over the previous 6 months or so, eating and drinking without doing much excercise and I hadn't even noticed, until I saw some unsightly photographs. I decided I would diet and get more excercise and this in itself, seemed to awaken some other needs for change. In particular drugs, now I am not going to lie and say I have been completely drug free but I am getting there and slowly but surely I feel my need for them slowly waning.

I moved back to Dublin in October, something which I thought would have made me miserable and despite a few hick ups, I do not regret that decision. Christmas this year was absolute perfection, the right mixture of family, friends and alone time. My sister gets married now in 3 weeks and I expect this day to be a monumental day for our family, I am looking forward to that day with excitement and glee.

So, yes. It's been challenging year and It's hard to look back on it fondly but If being challenged so much is what it  took for me to make the necessary changes to make me a better more well rounded person, then so be it.

I will go into 2013 with a clear head, I have no plans to drink myself into a stupor to ring in the new year, nor will I be partying hard on a cocktail of uppers. No, I will be at home chilled in front of the television, probably with my mother. But I will be sober. I will return to Manchester in February, as long as the work holds out. I want to make 2013 as awesome and as epic as possible.

Do I have any resolutions for the new year, well as much as I would like to say I don't believe in them, I have to say I do. But I would rather call them goals.

• To continue to lose weight, I have lost 2 stone since August, from dieting and excercise and although I have slacked on the dieting, since my shoulder accident, I would like to continue losing more and I believe I have what it takes. I can't even begin to explain what losing weight has done for my confidence. 
• I have cut back on smoking in the last few weeks and so far have been having just one or two a day, I WILL quit smoking completely before I ring in the new year. The same goes for drugs, I refuse to carry this problem into 2013. 
• To find love. I have no immediate plans to get into a relationship and although, I had a crush for most of this year, I have still not been in a relationship place. But I hope, once I make the changes I need to do, that there might be, at some point, room for a boy to love. We'll see. 
• Education. To get some....I am just not sure in what yet. But hopefully it will happen. 

I hope 2013 brings everything you want it to.

Have a happy new year.