Ah, this time last year. I was struggling with my MA (remember sobbing to my friends in Slug and Lettuce – ha! embarassing) and applying for pretty much anything, including slaving over the Civil Service Fast Stream aptitude tests. Don’t do it to yourselves, people. We had a quiet New Year’s at mine, and I spent a lot of the holidays (as per usual) trying to juggle family commitments (/guilt) with essays, and restraining the ever-simmering anxiety attack threatening to burst forth….
Now? Well. I have a job that I love. Doing what I love. I’m still in Cardiff, which I didn’t think I would be. I live in a bubbly, friendly, cake-loving house, with people I didn’t really know that well until about 3 months ago. I’m really, really happy. My boyfriend no longer lives a 2-hour fortnightly train journey away, and he’s happier, too.
A lot of things have happened this year that I wasn’t expecting. There’s been a lot of not-knowing, and of last minute falling into place. I would never have got this job without the internship (which I’d never have done if I had moved home instead of doing the Masters), which I applied for with a quick curiosity email during an essay-writing break. I didn’t really enjoy the job at the Union, but it let me stay in Cardiff, and so apply for the job I have now.
Really looking forward to 2012, which isn’t something I usually have the oppurtunity to even think about. This time of year I’m usually on breaking point with the cumulative effects of assignment deadlines, family stress, and being away from Rob. But I’ve had a break, I’ve recharged. I can do that whole self-reflective taking-stock thing I always heard people talking about as the year draws to a close.
Next year I shall continue to not-plan. Or to not concretely plan. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen, good or bad. You don’t know where the next 12 months will take you. It’s great to have ideas, and I do – little snapshots of what The Future could look like. But in December 2012 I might be again sat here thinking wow, I can’t believe that happened…
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