It’s 2013 and I have spent the past few days thinking about what I want out of this new year. I’ve made my brain hurt with that and so many other things running through it, but I think I’ve started to see light at the other side.

It is going to sound selfish to some of you, but 2013 is going to be about me. There. Said it. 

I am so glad to see the back of 2012 – yes I know lots of great things happened, the Olympics etc, but on a personal level, despite the good things about it, 2012 ranks as the worst year of my life, alongside 1983 (which is when I lost my mam).

I have spent so long thinking about what I want to say in this post, that I’m four days late getting it down – and after having worked it all out in my head lying in bed last night, I can’t remember exactly what I was going to say. So in no particular order, here goes:

2013

I am going to be more decisive – decisions have to be made, huge decisions that will affect everybody I care about, but I have spent too long dithering and looking at the what ifs, being too scared to take that big step in case it’s the wrong one. I have to accept that if it’s the wrong one then so be it, then will be the time to worry about it, not now before I’ve even done anything about it.

I am going to stop being afraid of relying on me – I feel real optimism about this new year and I can feel, rather than see, great beginnings ahead.

Linked to that, I now feel ready to move forwards without the crutch of medication to fall back on. It will have to be baby steps here I know, and it will take time, but I am certainly up for giving it a go. (What, you didn’t know about the happy pills? See, I’m moving forwards already, putting myself out there along with the other brave women who are much braver than me and who have talked about or chronicled their depression in their blogs. It’s because of them and their writing that I have found the courage to mention my illness now, though I know if you blink you’ll have missed it.)

I am going to explore my intuition, my gut feelings about life – work, relationships… I have never believed in fate, I have never wanted to. If there’s no free will then what’s the point of trying to do anything with our lives? If it’s all laid out in advance, well, that is just so depressing, I don’t want to think about it. But what if there are ‘things’ guiding us? I don’t know what kind of things and can’t think of a better word to describe what I mean, but what if we listened to our inner voices – intuition, gut feeling, sixth sense, call it what you will, where could that lead us? I still refuse to believe in pre-determination, but I am becoming more and more open to the idea that there are certain paths you can take that are better for you than others. And after years of making decisions with my head it just feels right to do this now…

So that’s it, 2013.

Oh and all the other usual things like lose weight, drink less wine, exercise more…

Next New Year’s Eve at midnight I want to be sitting on my sofa, glass of wine in my hand, watching Big Ben chime on TV and think “I did that…”