So just over a week ago, it was my birthday. That puts me up to 22. It’s been quite a year…

Over the past year or so I’ve learned an awful lot about life. It’s quite weird but I do feel myself “growing up”. I feel a lot different to how I did just a couple of years ago. It’s a bit difficult to explain. It’s like your knowledge just booms as the experiences come flying in.

On my birthday, my dad gave me some advice. He said that although it’s fine to grow up, I should try to avoid “getting older”. What he meant by that, is that you can mature as a person, learn to cope with what life throws at you and deal with things in a sensible way, but don’t let go of your youth. And that’s what I intend to do. I already feel myself maturing, and I know that when it is needed, I can think things through and work towards the right outcome to difficult situations. However I also keep hold of my silly side I’m staying light hearted and letting myself enjoy life between the hurdles.

This year I have had a wide range of experience. I’ve experienced being right in the deep end of love, and then the feeling of loss as it’s ripped from me. I’ve experienced the freedom of unemployment after university, to the shackles of full time work. I’ve seen more of the world, with a great trip to Italy, as well as seeing my own city in a new light as I travel straight through the centre each day. I’ve made some great new friends, and also seen the worst side of what humanity has to offer.

Life is one constant challenge, full of ups and downs. If life is a game, it’s set on hard mode. But one of the biggest things I’ve come to learn this year is that you can’t go through life as if you’re the only one “playing”. The amount of control you have on your own life is sadly limited. You can put everything you have into something, just to have it taken from you by someone else, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Life is a strange thing, it can be defined in so many ways… through science, religion, mixtures of both. The limit isn’t even your imagination. It goes beyond that. Way beyond it. I don’t think anyone will ever fully understand it. But this shall be for another post.. as I could be here all night

So where will I go from here? That’s a good question.

In terms of career, if I’m honest, I’m not satisfied. It doesn’t feel my kinda thing to keep doing for the rest of my life. I need a bit of freedom, a bit of room for creativity. I like to write programs, but on my own terms. Not forced to work on something as someone else tells me, limited in what I can add myself. That’s not me, and I will find something else, some way to change my working lifestyle to suit me better. For now though, I’m sticking with it. I work with nice people and it’s a stable company in hard economic times… so for that I’m thankful.

I also need to fill this hole left inside of me since I lost my love. I miss her. I miss it all. I’d give anything to feel that way again. I’ve spent a few months without her now and it’s the worst feeling I’ve ever had. It just doesn’t feel right, like I’ve lost a part of myself. It would have consumed me, if it weren’t for those close friends keeping me going, and my family for giving support.

I feel stronger now though. I feel I’ve taken something from it, and I’m ready to go again. Where that will be though, I do not know. As I said before, you can’t control how things go on your own, especially in love, as it is all about you and someone else. It takes two. All I know is that the one who says “yes” will not regret it. This time it will go right. This time, we will be free.

‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds’

Here’s to another eventful year