2012 - The best year of my life!

Here we are again, on the eve of the final week of another year, excited to have some time off work and gather with our families for Christmas festivities.  I always feel quite nostalgic as the end of a year approaches and like to reflect back on the events that have passed and decide whether the year was a success or not.  Life is a rollercoaster of a story, it has its ups and its downs, and a year is a small representation of the story you are creating, the legacy of your existence.

Unusually, and refreshingly, 2012 has not been a rollercoaster of a year for me; it has been an exhilarating zip wire of excitement and joy, a year unrivalled in the happiness and good times it has given me.  I will be lucky to experience another year like it, a year packed to the rafters with fun, laughter, joy and love.  I will always hold 2012 dear to my heart as the year I got married, but I never anticipated that this occasion would shape the whole year into the magnificent event that it has been.  I am sorry to leave behind 2012 but excited and eager with anticipation for what 2013 holds.  I left 2011 with mixed emotions, I had been dreadfully unhappy in my job and had just lost my Granddad when I secured the position I have been working in since September and ended the year knowing it would be more than 8 months before I would start it, which seemed so far away.

My highlights of 2012 have not just been personal experiences but also sharing the joy of the nation in the jubilee celebrations (if you followed my old blog you will know I am a closet royalist), the London Olympic games, Felix Baumgartner’s death defying leap and, despite being a Liverpool fan, a new football team taking the Premier League title when Manchester City secured their trophy in the dying minutes of the season.  In all it has been a fantastic year for our wonderful nation.

On a personal level, I have loved the amount of time I got to spend with friends and family on my three hen dos and at my wedding.  I am disappointed in the fact that next year there will not be as many excuses to meet up with my loved ones and I hope that we still make the effort for fun times despite being more than 200 miles apart.  My wedding day was undoubtedly the best day of my life, it is probably the only time that every single person you love is in the same room and having fun and, if there was one day I could go back and relive again it would unquestionably be 4^th August 2012.  My honeymoon experience was unspeakably fantastic and I am happy to have been able to cross off two other lifetime goals of mine in sailing around the pacific islands of Fiji and staying in LA’s The Beverly Wilshire, both experiences I will hold dear in my heart for the rest of my life.

As well as the massive landmark of becoming a wife, August also saw me move to London and start a new job.  Whilst I will not deny it has been stressful, I am resolutely convinced that I made the right decision and I am ecstatic to be enjoying the experience of living in London, one of my favourite cities in the world, as well as having made some great new friends in the process.

So as I say goodbye to 2012, I look to 2013 with hope and excitement at what lies ahead.  Normally I set myself goals and aims for the approaching New Year but this year I have but one and that is to enjoy myself.  This is the first year I will be able to enjoy not having to plan or work towards anything in particular and I look forward to exploring London further, visiting some Southern Cities I have yet to acquaint myself with such as Oxford, Brighton, Bath, Bristol and Cambridge as well as reacquainting myself with my two favourite European cities of Barcelona and Paris.  I hope to have plenty to write about and plenty to smile about. 

I wish you all a happy and healthy 2013 and hope you are looking to the future as optimistically as I am.  Remember, you cannot change or revisit the past but you can shape your future.