New Year & 2004 (that’s not a typo)

It’s kinda traditional for me to do a review of the year at the end of the year, but first, New Year. I can’t actually remember what I did last new year. But this one was very cool. I’ve started to like meeting new people outside of work; and much less find it nervewracking and terrifying (unlike at work where it’s fine). I guess I might be turning into a well adjusted individual. Or perhaps it’s just that Trey (lyric_splat) is a really nice individual and thus meeting her was nice :-) ). Anyway, back to the point (if there ever was one). Yeah, so this new year some friends I’ve not seen for a long time headed over from the other side of the country to spend new year with us.

We spent the evening trying to get food (suprisingly hard), chatting and generally having a quiet but nice new year. We watched Katakuri-ke no kôfuku (Happiness of the Katakuris) – one of the stranger films in my collection; one I think is absolutely fabulous, but most people declare breaks their head! Prior to them arriving we went that extra mile and actually put all the furniture in the right place; I put my work away (god that felt nice) and cleared the post and bills into the filing cabinet; so we have had a rare few days of the house being actually tidy (my definition, I expect my mum’d still be horrified).

Like I said, I got to meet Trey, who I I’d like to get to know better at some point, saw Nikki and Chrissy, who I’ve not seen in forever, and Nikki and AmeriKate came down on the first after their long visit to the land of the free (sic). So generally we had a fabby collection of friends come down so we could have a fabby time. Oh and I played Robo Rally, a game I’d not even heard of before which turned out to be great fun (mmm, spacial reasoning).

So that was my New Year.

What about the old one?

Well, it is traditional that around the beginning of January I do a kind of review of the year sort of thing.

I can’t remember what happened at the beginning of last year. It was only 2 months after my bike accident; I was in the middle of a placement I wasn’t enjoying and my relationship with my partner was disintegrating. In short, it sucked. And basically, that’s how 2004 has been, for the greater part.

It sucked. It’s been a really hard year. The first 2 months were spent with me trying to (basically) ignore the relationship disaster I was in; whilst stressing about the fact we didn’t have enough money; her motorbike was about as reliable as a conservative party promise and my degree course wasn’t going well. As I struggled to come to terms with the fact that ‘forever’ meant a year and a half, and that she clearly didn’t love me anymore (something I was trying to work out how to change, albeit unsuccessfully), my world fell apart.

We split up in February; and move out of the house we’d chosen together facing out onto beautiful countryside in March. And I cried. I wanted her back, I wanted her to fall in love with me again; but I was so bitter about the end of the relationship that I prevented that (unlikely event) from being a possibility.

It did, however, spur me to actually get contact lenses (best decision ever, even if I did end up with conjunctivitis), get my hair cut (so now I look more like a human being than some kind of hybrid dougal-come-ape), and actually get on with my life a bit. I bought more new clothes, I bought new furniture, I moved into a new house….

….which sucked. I live next to a rascist, we’ve got a garage we can’t use (cheers to the landlord for the bed in the garage, that helps), heating that just-and-barely-produces heat, immersion-heater-only hot water (central heating and hot water my arse), electrics that have not-worked for more than month long periods and now we’re getting kicked out. Ra for the house. On the other hand we’ve got insaneoband-broadband; me and Lauren have got back to being close friends and I’m slowly starting to get back on top of my degree.

For the whole of 2004 I just found it really hard to care. I really loved doing the work, I had the most fantastic placement at Chippenham Hospital, and another really good placement in Bath (which I’m still on); but the whole of 2004 I just found the idea of actually doing essays, and assignments almost impossible to find any enthusiasm for. The thought of them just made me feel like sitting in a heap and saying “oh god no”.

And I finally saw a councellor. I finally admitted that my issues have validity, I’m an important enough person to need to get help for myself. So I did. And very good it has been. We’ve touched on some very close-to-the nerve stuff; and it’s left me feeling pretty raw at times; but I feel so much better in myself now.

I ended up having a new relationship, something I think I wasn’t quite ready for, not really, even though I thought I was, but it was with someone fantastic and nice and sane and normal… It’s just maybe not the time for relationships, I need an awful lot from someone I’m with at the moment, and I can’t give much back (mostly with my dad being ill, but that and the stress of my degree… well, it’s not a good time for me).

But at the end of 2004 I feel better than I have done for more than a year; I have ended up in a better place for all of the problems which just seemed overwhelming at one point. I’ve done things this year I never expected to do. There’s the possibility of some very exciting stuff happening in 2005.

And I’m ready to face 2005 with renewed vigour.

Or I would be if I’d not been working last night and thus feel like hell-on-earth. So tomorrow, renewed vigour. Today, today we do cheese on toast and malt crunchies. Yes. Oh, and I’ll proof this darn essay.