Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

Happy New Year!

I can't quite believe it's 2013! I don't quite know why, but it seems like a funny year somehow, like a date from the future that years ago when I was a child seemed so far away. I don't know why it should seem odder to me than 2012 but there you go; the inner workings of my brain have always been a mystery.

I'm not a fan of January, so much. It's a funny month, the excitement of Christmas has gone and it's just cold and damp and still dark outside so early and everybody is recovering from the over-indulgances of the festive season: tummies are full and purses are empty. If December is the party then January is the hangover and I never much cared for hangovers.  Speaking of Christmas, what a lovely time. I say lovely, I was struck down with the plague between Christmas and the New Year [not the actual plague - it's 2013 people, but the norovirus which I don't mind telling you felt like a plague at the time, woe is me] so it could have been better, but the before and after were lovely. Low-key, but lovely. Ian and I had a carpet picnic on Christmas Eve which involved pyjama's [and mine were festive yes, thank-you very much] and plates of food which we ate with our fingers sitting cross-legged on the rug, and Poirot's Christmas and Snowballs - made from Advocaat not from snow - and lots and lots of giggles. It was just the two of us and it was perfect. Best Christmas Eve Ever.

And now it's New Year and it's a time for reflection and planning and resolving and yes, I have made a couple of resolutions. Some that are for myself, secret resolutions that I shan't share in case I jinx them, some that are less resolutions and more hopes, wishes, dreams because God, isn't it nice to have something to hope for, to aim towards? It's a bit of a trope really the whole New Years Resolution thing; everybody makes them, hardly anybody keeps them and the whole idea is probably totally over-used but still, new year new start and all that and why not, what's wrong with trying to better yourself?

That's the point I think, for me at least. I want to better myself. I want to be more. I'm 30 this year and whilst I am not having the breakdown about it that I have witnessed in a few of my friends, I am aware that perhaps turning 30 is also turning a corner. It feels like the age when one has to really grow up, which is a horrific concept and I am still waiting for Peter Pan. I am aware that there are things I'd hoped I'd have done by now, and that I'm not quite in the place in my life I'd thought I might be, and whilst some things are past and lost and some things are out of my control, it feels like as good a time as ever to seize my destiny [not really seize my destiny though, because hello, really? I just wanted to use that line in an actual sentence.] I do want to 'be better' though.

I want to be fitter, healthier because yes I am a New Years Resolution cliche, whatcha gonna do?! I want to eat better because I don't eat well at all. Some days I just don't eat. That's bad. I want to be fitter, not to lose weight but to be toned and to have the better general health that comes with regular exercise.

I want to save money, because last year I didn't - last year, financially, was really tough for us, I don't want this year to be the same.  I plan to set up a Christmas savings account, and I also plan to pay regularly into my ISA. I want to live more frugally, to make better choices, to cut back in some areas so as to go forwards in others.

I want to make more of my family and my friends. I lost my Grandpa in 2012, which sucked and I regret so much that I didn't make more of him. I miss him every single day and it kind of makes you realise that life is just so fragile. You just never know. I want to spend time with my parents, my brother, my Granny, my sister-in-law, my niece etc. I want to be a better friend. I can just about count on one hand the friends that I class as 'close' (which i love actually because I'd rather have a handful of really close friends than a whole load of 'friends' you know?)and I want to be a better friend to them, better than I have been because those people? They deserve it.  I want to see them, speak to them, write to them. I want to make sure each and every person that counts, knows it. I want to make memories I can hold onto forever and take photographs that I'll always be able to look at. I want to spend 2013 with the people I love around me, and I want them to know why they're there: because they matter.

I want to pamper myself. I'd like the odd massage because, not gonna lie, I am tense. I do not know how to relax. I am snappy and stressy and I don't sleep when I am supposed to sleep and most of the time my entire upper body just hurts. My back is knotted up beyond belief, all of the time. A massage on a semi-regular basis would be nice. I'd like the odd day spent in my attic with a good book and a big bag of jelly beans, guilt-free. I'd like coffee dates and lunch dates with a glass of wine where I can make like I'm Carrie Bradshaw and duvet days where I can make like i'm a hermit crab just because. Days that are unashamedly about me because it's so easy to get up and go to work and do the same thing day in and day out and let months go past without ever focussing on who you are. It's ok to be selfish every now and then.

I want to properly reinstate Friday night date night because my boyfriend is the most awesome awesomer to ever awesome and Friday night date nights were the best thing. Also, double dates? I'm up for that. Yes. I'm looking at you, you know I am.

I want to have fun and I want to be happy and I want to be able to look back, this time next year with money in the bank and my best people by my side and say 'yep, 2013 was a pretty good year.'