wasn't the world supposed to end around now?

The New Year never fails to bring with it a sense that one has another chance at a ‘new beginning’. As if the past year or years perhaps have instantly been swept away with the falling ashes of midnight fireworks. As Auld Lang Syne bellows about the room, one’s mind is an internal whisper of promises to stick to resolutions made half asleep the night before, and convincing itself that this year will be more significant than the last. It seems we are never satisfied with what has gone before and always fall into the dream that what’s to come will be better, only to do it all again twelve months later. If this isn’t you then you have obviously read a book or heard a rumour I haven’t. If so an email detailing such a remarkable truth would be greatly appreciated. 

Is there really such a thing as another chance or a new start? If the ability to erase memories was a real possibility then perhaps such a thing could work but while nagging regrets or irritating mistakes still play about in your head, starting a fresh is near impossible. There will always be that memory of yesterday, what should have been, what could have been. You can start again sure, but you’ll be carrying a massive backpack of past and it is this that you really want to get rid of but can never shift. The past is here to stay. 

I myself began the Christmas holidays with this notion of change. I took my first sip of alcohol in eighteen months on Christmas morning. Why? I suppose I was tired of clinging onto past mistakes and punishing myself with the memories every time I refused a glass of wine. I had given up alcohol to try and improve myself but all I had really done was locked myself in a time that was long past. What was I achieving now? Eighteen months is an impressive amount of time and of course I felt better for it but if it was happiness I was looking for I certainly hadn’t found it. I needed to prove that I could be trusted not to abuse alcohol and the only way to do that was allow myself to try again. After all I thought, I’m 25 I should be able to handle this. So it was with these sentiments I picked up the glass. Oh I have missed the taste, the warm feeling in the pit of my stomach as my mind relaxes. Suddenly. I was able to think again. It will be a slow process, already I am aware I haven’t changed. I’ve grown stronger, maybe even a little wiser but I will always be me. Those ways so twisted into my being that instead of hiding from them I must now confront those inconvenient truths and admit. They are me, I am them and there is no other way. It’s not easy admitting that I am not all that I seem but honesty is better than denial. 

Reaching my birthday was difficult. I have always been petrified of time, its passing, its inability to go backwards. When I was seven I stood in the school play ground jumping on and off the number one square of the hopscotch that was sprayed in front of me. With each jump I told myself ‘You will never get that jump back again, you will never get that moment back.’ Depressing, but it was the start of a minor obsession that has stayed and grown with me. Twenty five, I know, is by no means old but it certainly isn’t twenty one. Ahhh to be twenty one again. It is a quarter of a century and half way to thirty though. I can easily try and pacify my worries by telling myself ‘look how much you have done,’ ‘how much has changed,’ etc. but these are only temporary plasters. Fears are often irrational and I know this one is irrational at its greatest but by the very definition this knowledge gives me little comfort. 

Who makes the wish as you blow out your birthday candles come true? Is someone given the job of making those wants happen? I know it’s bad luck to tell so I never have. But I can’t say anything I ever wished for actually has come true. I know my last two have probably been the same. Humans are so odd, the lies we tell to make life seem that little bit more hopeful. Like Father Christmas. The Toothfairy. God? Although at least the last of those three is based on more than just an image supplied by Coca - Cola, and is perhaps the only one many people vehemently cast as a lie but may just turn out to be our greatest truth. See, Humans are odd. So with a giant grin and a mouthful of chocolate cake I ran my mind away from all those awkward questions and fears to take delight in the present and the thought that at least I had made it to twenty five!

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If you haven’t experienced one, you might think a Christmas Day in the Summertime would seem utterly wrong. Well that’s what I though until I was lucky enough to be part of one. Admittedly the build up wasn’t perhaps quite as ‘exciting’ as back home, mainly because there weren’t very many lights around. But of course there isn’t much point in having them when it doesn’t get dark until near 10P.M! But the actual day, no matter where you are still has that same ‘Christmassy’ feeling. The copious amounts of food and treats, family, cracker pulling, random presents and that awkward time between the excitement of the morning and preparing Christmas dinner. What does one do between those two main events?! I like to find somewhere quiet to sit, think and reflect for a moment. A past time I learned when I was young and would have to do to stop myself being sick again from all the excitement zooming around my body. It is a very calming activity and is as much a part of Christmas Day for me as Danan’s Christmas cake (Which I was very sad to miss this year!).

The weather was warm and even a little sunny. A big change from the past three weeks of constant rain. Eating outside on Christmas day felt amazing and as turkey has never been my favourite, indulging in fresh salmon, a giant ham and all sorts of salads and vegetables was my perfect meal! Of course we had Christmas pudding (much to the disgust of the Kiwis at the table) and a trifle to follow, of which I had numerous helpings. I must admit I did miss my giant family but being away wasn’t at all as bad as maybe I had dreaded. This family Christmas was just as loving and fun and I couldn’t have been happier to be a part of it. I must note though that there was NO food fight, not that I didn’t try and persuade! 

Boxing Day was spent on the beach and in a boiling hot beer garden. Not quite the same as watching Bognor Regis lose at home again and learning a few new swear words but both have their own merits. New Years was a garden party at a friends, consuming many cocktails and being told by Ollie that roaring in company new to me was not appropriate at any stage of the evening. We returned home at around nine so the children could go to bed and then Ollie, Char, Nige and I saw the year end together. I heard the news reporter say 2011 had ended but I’m not quite sure at the time I believed him. It had all gone by so quickly, I’m not even sure I got chance to actually feel right about it being 2011. You know when you have to say it over and over in your head until it sounds right? Being one of the first countries to make it to 2012 was weird. Everyone else was still behind us and the time fiend in me was descending into confusion as other people still got to be in the past. I went to bed alone. Perhaps in the morning the New Year would sink in. 

When I watched London come alive beneath amazing fireworks, when I heard Big Ben chime it’s twelfth, then I was ready to move forward, then it felt right. I guess even though I’m thousands of miles away, deep down I’m still running on English time and it’s only 2012 when Greenwich says it is! 

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After a short blog holiday I am ready to get back down to work, to make sure 2012 begins as literary feverish as 2011 ended. More blogs for 2012! That is my promise to you. There may not be genius in the words but I will offer a handful of paragraphs every now and then that may just mildly entertain.

4/1/12