2012

Its pretty staggering to think how different my life was this time last year.

Christmas is now done and gone - a wonderfully relaxed and peaceful week - so much so it was a tremendous effort to make myself come back to London. Every day I would procrastinate ' just one more day, just one more day' safely cocooned in quiet suburbia, eating and drinking like a queen, cuddling the beautiful dog and hanging out with my siblings watching endless films. Yesterday saw the first sunshine in well over a week which was enough incentive to put on a bra and come back to the city. I dumped my shit and made my way to catford for a freaking delicious roast dinner with liz, nic, erica and dean. Of course I did get caught by a train station attendant furiously yanbking up my new tights which had made their way south. I also fell up Liz's stairwell, smashing a bottle of wine and soaking the carpet. And as a technical fifth wheel to two couples, as i sat shoving giant pieces of toblerone in my mouth, I did start to look back at my year, and wonder if next year, would I still be single? God Bridget.

My year started off great. A party at my favourite local pub, and then in mid january , a delicious long holiday in our own castle in scotland with my parents and boyfriend. Of course, the joy was short lived and back in reality with empty bank accounts and that horrible january grey depression, my 3 and a half year relationship went kaput. It was a tough time and at first, I was pretty lost. I dont want to say I lost my identity in the relationship because that would be very unfair, however I was left wildly thrashing about in my head of what the fuck I would do next.

My aunt and uncle let me move in with them - a bloody godsend - and i put myself back together. I realised this was my last full year in my 20s, and i wasnt going to spend it crying under a duvet and watching steel magnolias. So I started making myself go out more.

And with that, I then made some fucking amazing new friends. It wasnt that i disliked my job before, but i never really bothered with that many people. Well, more fool me, for i wasted an entire year. I am really really grateful for the awesome people i now get to hang out with, not only at work, not only after work, but in my own time as well. When I looked at my facebook review of the year, i was shocked to see I had 63 new friends this year. And thats when i realised how many new people are in my life that were not in 2011. Special obvious shout outs to erica, dean, mountain, martin, tina, rou, matty and mark, among many others.

I also made the move back into London. Talk about knocking ten years off my life. No longer shackled to the curse of leaving the party to run for the last train back to essex, i moved to bethnal/stepney green with felicity and lois. The entire flat looks like a vintage explosion and I love it. This has also pushed me into going out more - markets, musuems, galleries, bars.

When I look back, i cant believe how fast this year has flown. a photo update is needed i think.

So ims itting here, in my room in london, getting ready to go out, and wondering just how different i am from last year.

Theres a great philosophical thinker: if you have a boat, and you replace a bit of the boat with something new, its still the same boat. but if you took the whole boat down and rebuilt it with new pieces in one go - then its a new boat. But what happens when you piece by piece, add something new? When does that boat become something different?