This was my year

In light of all the year in review things that have been coming up on my Facebook timeline and of course it being New Years Eve tomorrow, I have decided to look back on the last year in a whimsical manner. You may ( or possibly may not) have noticed that I didn't share my own year in review and that's because the graphics annoyed me, the photos were selected at random and by the time I worked how to generate one I was already tired of seeing other peoples. Instead I will look back at my year from the comfort of my couch and I will decide what photos reflect that. 

 Tomorrow night I will be ringing in the New Year in Momo, a restaurant offering a bites and bubbles package and we keep saying we must try them out so let's call it a happy compromise between my desire to do absolutely nothing on New Years eve and Stephen's to do something to ring it in. I think its safe to say with the big January detox looming that I might have a few glasses of some sort of wine and my head will be a bit too delicate to write anything coherent New Years day so I am being ever so proactive by doing it now.

 Here's something I wrote last night called New year 

 New Year
Days fall into daily frustration
and I promised myself I
wouldn't be the one scrawling 
my New Year's resolutions onto napkins.

 This will be the year of me,
this year ends and I am making
so many plans 
to be different as though
this was a novel idea.

 Let's be fitter and somehow richer,
let's go out more,
somehow turn my life around and
not just make dents in my couch 
as I wait to be discovered.

 This will be a New Year,
you'd swear this wasn't my 32nd one
of these
as I am feeling as optimistic
as new born kitten,
half blind to the truth.

 This year might well be the same 
as last,
I might blur into insignificance.
If I don't change something,
I can't expect different results,
I will slowly go insane.

 Or my changes might not be as slow,
it's easier just to stay here,
away from the big scary world
and frighten myself with the what ifs
and prophecies of doom.

 Is this the year I will be a better version of myself?
I certainly can't be a worse one.
Is this a new year?
or just another year?

 This was the year I rediscovered poetry. A medium I thought I had lost because everything I tried to write sounded forced so I just did what I do best in these circumstances and gave up. It was a shame because I always liked the way poetry made the words flow for me and then suddenly a few months ago I found it returned to me. I was doing an online course in creative writing that turned out to not be really suitable for me as there was not enough guidance or feedback and instead of doing the assignments required I found myself writing poems again as though someone had given me permission to be more creative. I am not sure if I am creating anything that's any good but I can see they are less bleak and melodramatic than my older work so it seems as I grow so does my poetry.

 This was the year I went on a cultural tour of the south east. I have Stephen to thank for that as he is very proactive when it comes to doing different things and I know for certain that without I would have just read about these things online and wished I had the opportunity to go. The highlights would be; 'a skull in Connemara' in garter lane ( Waterford), many gigs in Central hall( Waterford) including in the willows , Rsag, Midnight union band and circle sessions, boyhood in Triskel arts centre (cork), Cat laughs festival in Kilkenny, a whole boat load of movies at cult classics cinema in Theatre royal and our very first opera 'the invader' as well. 

 We watched a play up the mountain (Lackendara Jim in the Comeraghs) and saw the Riptide movement play vicar street and we went on our very first holiday together. Weird how my year in review has turned into my year with Stephen in review but I would be hard pushed to think of anything I did without besides train in Crossfit Tipperary. During the summer we went to Edinburgh to see the sights and catch up with my college friends and had a great time. We tried out lots of bars and restaurants and hit a good few tourist spots too. 

 This was the second year I spent blogging. Yes that's right as of this January I have been doing this two years. I don't write everyday like I did when I started out but I would like to hope the quality is getting better and I will strive to make my life blogworthy next year. It is much easier to regale the internet with your escapades when you are actually having some. 

 I think this is the year I tackled my fussy eating. Now don't get me wrong I am still a pain in the ass and by no means will I eat whatever is put in front of me but I have been to more restaurants in the last year than I had been to in the last 10-15 years and I have eaten in all of them which is a much bigger deal than you would imagine. Who knew it would take me 32 years to develop a bit of flexibility in my eating habits. This is the year I started eating fish and also the year I started eating nutroast. To listen to my parents you would think the nutroast thing was a much bigger deal and I honestly thought someone was going to give an emotional speech when I helped myself to a serving during Christmas dinner.

 So here's to this year; may next year be as interesting and note worthy, may my blog acquire some new followers, may someone drunkenly read my blog and commission to write something brilliant for money so I can become Bookshoplaura in name only, may my adventures take me further afield and hopefully involve just as much Stephen. 

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