Monday, January 14, 2008

The Year in Review

This post is one I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time. Its probably gonna be all over the place and it won’t be all happy or all sad. Its just me…thinking out loud about the year that was 07 and how it has been for me.

Reflecting on my year has been something I’ve done since I was 13. On my thirteenth birthday my brother and his girlfriend of the time gave me a journal and I’ve kept one ever since. Its great to look back and read where I was at and what I was doing over the last 11 years. Its scary too and Thank God for people growing up and changing!!! And its important to me to analyze the year and learn from it.

Anyways 2007 was a massive year for me. Definitely a year of firsts. Some good and some bad. There’s really no other way of describing it. No, I guess there is…long, rough maybe. My gut feeling when I think of it is sadness. But then when I think about the good firsts I am so proud of myself. So proud that I made it through and not just made it…rather I did well. All my life I have considered myself not quite cool enough. Especially in high school. Its held me back in so many ways, I’m sure there’s amazing people I don’t know and things I haven’t tried because of it. Particularly in relation to sport at school I hardly ever tried new things because I always felt I wasn’t cool enough and so wouldn’t be any good. Examples of this would be snowboarding and surfing. Sports that have a very close relationship to cool people! But this year I’ve learnt both. At the beginning of 07 I went to Bondi for a weekend with Lilly and we spent a day learning how to surf. And it was amazing and so much fun and we weren’t that bad! And then in July Kaija, Carissa and I went up to Mount Hutt and spent a day learning how to snowboard. And again it was a million times more fun then I had hoped it would be and we weren’t the worst in the group! And I got another tattoo which I had wanted to get for years as it represented my family and they are so important to me.

And I finished my degree and I went to Thailand and Cambodia and moved to Australia (not a first but feels like it!!). And I made new friends (Nikki, Kaija’s group: the girl and the boy twins, barty, nashie) and I lost some and found old ones (thank you facebook).

But with good must come bad. May particular was a very tough month for our family. My brother had a major accident at work, our cat died, Sharyn got a B and I overdosed. These were first for our family. Firsts that none of us knew how to cope with. But we did and we’re getting better now. I think we all learnt an awful lot though.

And in November a girl I went to school with passed away. This was a first for me, having someone who I was friends with dying. My main memory of her from school is my wishing I was her. Of all the girls at high school she was the one I would most want to be. She was beautiful, funny, smart, fantastic at every sport, everyone liked her and she never let anyone walk over her. If she didn’t like something she’d say so. She was who I wanted to be. And now she’s gone and she leaves behind a beautiful little boy and lots of people who miss her more than they know how to say. I’m listening to the song by Sarah MacLachlan called Arms of the Angels that Jo sang at the funeral. And last night I accidently came across Time of Your Life by Green Day on my friends Ipod and Michael Jackson, You Are Not Alone will never be the same for me because that was the song that was played as she was carried out. I know its clichéd but she really will be sadly missed and never forgotten.

But now it’s 2008 and that brings with it a whole new set of challenges and experiences that I still don’t know about. New things, new places, new people, new feelings. This post feels a tiny bit clichéd but its not meant to be. And maybe if it's something I've been thinking about then others have too. So maybe we all do things this year that frighten us and grow us and may we get to 09 bigger better faster stronger. And may we all start blogging about it! Come on! Deb is fantastic with her blogging and maybe new years resolutions for you all should be to blog!

Jo xx

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

if you don't mind me asking, can you elaborate on the overdose?

Anonymous said...

Jo Jo - a hard year and a great year in many ways - you have been through a lot, discovered a lot and achieved a whole lot more! I'm glad I got to share it with you!

Thanks for being an awesome friend - may 2008 bring everything you deserve!

Love you longtime
xxxxx

Unknown said...

I'm glad you were with me too Miss Kaija. Can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!

Happy to elaborate but don't know what to say. What would you like to know?

Anonymous said...

what was the substance and what was the cause?