2014

Adults are STILL telling me about how fast their years are going by and they can't believe it's 2015 and OMG where has all the time gone? Yet despite 2014 being the year I officially (under some unknown force's authority) became an "adult" (that's 18) I had what felt like the longest year of my life. Until I looked at my twitter feed at New Year's I hadn't noticed how much people rate a year - all my friend's were writing "best year of my life so far", or "it was good, but nothing will ever beat my 2010". The consensus was generally positive - if I had bothered with twitter I would have probably just wrote "well that royally sucked".

I think the year felt so long because I changed so much. I turned 18. I started to go out drinking. (Although maybe not in that order). I finished my first year of Sixth Form; ended up quitting one subject from bad grades and keeping on the rest. Plus I fell in love for the first time. She didn't love me back. Those are how I picture 2014 - not in specific events but in things that just shifted my life. Which is probably why my image of the year is so murky. There was events too - I went skydiving (the first time I'd been in a plane, funnily enough); I "fired" my driving instructor because he was being a dick; and then I ended the year at a friend's house, sprawled drunk on a sofa and watching two other couples making out.

The last few months of the year are just a blur to me. I've suffered depression before but just powered through it, and for some weird reason always talked myself out of going to a doctor, but it's only as some mist faded and I could actually look back at those months when I realized how much I needed help. Because I couldn't see anything from this time. The days blurred together. What date specific things happened to me is lost. I just lay in bed, feeling tired but unable to sleep and thinking dark thoughts. I always used to agree with those descriptions of depression as a black pit that traps you and won't let you out for even the shortest vacation to the surface, but I realized I'd never really felt this until this dark period. I'd only experienced depression like a few spare weights attached to me at all times.

Which is my bit of reasoning why this year was the first time I ever bothered with the whole "New Year's Resolution". I'm not one for traditions so this was something I'd never done. I saw no point in saying "I'm going to quit chocolate" on the first day of the year when, if you really needed to quit it, you could just quit it straight away. But now I see the point. Doing shit is hard. I imagine quitting a comfort like chocolate is damn hard. I wrote down a list of things to do (someone of them done, some not) - going to the doctors about my depression (among other things), handing in some CVs and getting a job, asking my teacher's specifically about what I need to do and about work experience placements. It's all really hard. That's why you need a specific date, to make it official, so it's not just some random goal you've imagine up for yourself, told no one else about, then fucked up at and forgotten all about it.

I had good times in 2014, just not as many as I would have liked. Far too many bad times. Which is my way of saying that 2015 is going to be better, I'm going to make it better. That really, after a year, I just want to be a better person and be in a better place.