Happy new year folks

Sarah wrote something on her blog the other day that really chimed for me: "I'm ending the year in the same job, same flat, same relationship, same group of friends as I started it in."

With the exception of relationship (started the year without one, ending the year in the 'it's complicated' section of Facebook relationship options), this is all true for me... yet 2012 has been a year of immense changes.  It's just that those changes have mostly been internal, rather than external.

For years I have been itching for change, which I always imagined needed to be visible, physical change: preferably a change of job or location.  I felt frustrated with the life I was leading and every new year felt depressing, because nothing had changed.

This year I feel, finally, ok about ending the year in the same place I started it in.  Because actually, I'm not in the same place.  Yes, I still live in the same house, do the same job, have the same group of friends.  But I feel irrevocably altered by the things that have happened this year, and it turns out there is nothing to make you appreciate what you have than thinking you are going to lose it all.

2012 has not been an easy year.  I have felt worried about my friends, and exhausted by school.  I've had to accept that all the planning in the world cannot make things work out perfectly.  I have felt, at times, lonely and depressed and 'not fine'.  But this year has been a really valuable learning curve for me.  I have made some amazing blogging friends (even if I have never met any of them).  I have figured out some pretty big stuff about myself and what I want.  And I think I might even *whisper it* be finally starting to grow up.

So I end the year pretty much where I started it, but yet so very far away from there.  And I will actually be far away on New Year's Eve, because Janet-the-planner, Janet-who-never-acts-on-impulse, Janet-the-least-romantic-person-in-the-world has booked last minute flights to visit The Boy in The Netherlands.  I can't wait.

Have an amazing new year everyone, and I'll see you in 2013.