New Year was pretty awesome, I was glad to see people again, although it seems I don’t actually remember a lot from the evening now that I have seen pictures….it’s been quite a while since I’ve got to that point. It was a good time, but I paid for it the next couple of days!

So I wanted to use this post to talk about regrets. I’ve been thinking a bit about mine, given the time of year and the thought of new beginnings. I always used to say, in the way that people do, that I don’t have regrets - everything I’ve done in my life has made me who I am today. To a certain extent that’s true, but really I think if you’ve gone through life and got to your twenties (particularly if you’ve done university) and you say you have absolutely *NO* regrets, then you’re either ridiculously laid back, a saint, or a liar. 

On reflection, I think I only really realised I had regrets this year, perhaps because you don’t realise how things are going to impact upon the rest of your life until you’re there facing the consequences. 

I’ve had a pretty rough couple of years, mostly stemming from an exceptionally bad relationship in which I allowed myself to be completely controlled and kept away from all the people that actually cared about me. I think I clung onto that relationship because I felt that I had nothing else. Not at the time of course, I had plenty - but it was final year of uni, my parents lived abroad and I had nowhere to go when it was inevitably all over. So I found some one who promised me the world, and promised to look after me but at a cost (a fairly strict rule-set to live by) and I went with it over having to actually face and deal with being alone and clueless. I don’t know whether I was weak, or whether it was a sort of survival instinct that kicked in. Either way, it all ended badly, promises were broken. Luckily I had an amazing set of friends who welcomed me back when I probably didn’t deserve it.

I think the regret part of this is pretty obvious. I wasted my third year living some one else’s life instead of making the most of my own while I still had relatively few responsibilities, and I worried a lot of people who were looking out for me. 

Even after graduation, and finding somewhere to stay (albeit not the best environment for me to be in, but with some amazing people) I felt so disappointed with how stupid I had been and decided to try to self-destruct and do whatever I wanted for a while. This didn’t go too well, and resulted in doing some more things I really wish I hadn’t. Again it was my friends that got me through it.

I’ve sort of lost where I’m going with this a bit, it’s all just thoughts that plague me, and I thought maybe writing them down would help - turns out, not so much! :-P

OK, so perhaps what I’ll conclude that even though everything I have done so far has made me how I am today, not all of it was good, and that I do have regrets/ However, I’m pretty lucky, despite my mistakes. I have friends who accept me for who I am, and allow me to f*ck up without (too much) judgement, and thanks to them, and to finding a guy who actually respects me, I’ve got back to being able to trust people again.