Happy New Year!

January is named after the god 'Janus' who had two faces and could look forward to the new year and back on the old one. Once more I find that I will be glad to see the back of this last year. It has been a year of ups and downs and for a time there I wondered if I would ever get through it. Like everything though, 2008 too, has passed and like a shares chart (and unlike our economy) I find my stock rising after one of my lowest ebbs.

At the start of the year (and for a good few months) I was dealing with the emotional fallout of the preceding year. Looking back I now realise how emotionally drained I was and I honestly do not know how I didn't have some sort of breakdown and quite frankly I think the old joke is true: I just didn't have the time or the energy to have one. My relationship with my family is still distant and I am still persona non grata with my brother (and that suits me fine actually as I have come to realise that I actually do not like him). 2008 has been a period of time where I have been deep in review and have examined many things that I once held true. I have changed the things I could not accept and accepted the things I could not change. It has been a long road but I have travelled it and I am STILL here.

I could not accept the stress of my last job (sabotage of my projects, covering for my boss who was off ill with no support, long hours etc.) and so I dug my escape tunnel and changed jobs in July, and hell I even got promoted. I also got my MBA Masters Degree after 5 years of studying. I have come to accept the situation with my family and the things that happened in 2007 (so much loss, so much meanness, so much pain). I have come to accept that I cannot change the way they behave and so I have healed relationships with all but my brother who refuses to behave reasonably. I accept this too though I do not like it. With acceptance has come the first feeling of inner peace I have felt in a very long time.

I already know that 2009 is going to initially bring me something unpleasant in the shape of surgery (9th Jan), but that will be the end of Hector (my thyroid lump) and I am hoping for good news once the test report comes back from the path lab. I will also celebrate a milestone birthday and rather than dreading it, I intend to celebrate with a big holiday somewhere. The rest of it I will make up as I go along and I hope to be better equipped to cope with anything else that is thrown at me. I am certainly stronger a year on than I was at the start of the year.

I am sincerely optimistic that 2009 will be a kinder year and that my stock will continue to rise. I do not make New Year resolutions but, like Janus I do face the coming year with hope and the resolve to put 2008 behind me where it belongs. I wish all of you a prosperous New Year, filled with health, wealth and happiness, especially for those of you whom I know have also had difficult times. I wish it for myself too.