2012: the reflection

I have been reading loads of end of year/start of a new year/resolution-style posts lately, and while I didn't have a huge urge to write my own, I saw a cool little list of questions in the NZ Herald today and thought it might be worth summing up my 2012 in ten simple bullet points. 

• What am I most proud of in 2012?
  Visualising my dreams and achieving them. I boarded a plane on February 7th from Melbourne to Auckland and spent the entire flight looking out the window at the clouds (apart from when I ordered a glass of wine - 10am, why the hell not), thinking about what I wanted to achieve in 2012. I visualised in great detail my ideal job, what goals I wanted to reach, what kind of people I wanted to meet, etc, and I am pretty stoked to say that the majority of this was realised by about the end of September. A hugely successful year in terms of changing the course of my life - I'm sure you can't make such massive claims all that often, so I'm damn proud of this one!
  
  I'm also really proud of some of the new friendships I made. It's not all that easy to do when you're as old as I am (29 next week, eeeeeeek!!) and the ones I made last year, I really value and I know they'll be around for a while. I feel very lucky.
• What is the most valuable thing I learned about myself in 2012?
  Oooh.... good question. That I'm actually really good at things I'm passionate about. I thought nothing of staying in the classroom until 10/11pm nights on end to make sure all my projects were amazing and I was delivering 110%... I've never felt that way about work and it was nice to know that the saying, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life" is actually correct.
• What do I wish I'd done more of in 2012?
  Save money? Hmm... not really. I guess I wish I'd spent less time being a poor student and more time embracing the student life. Wellington is an excellent student town, and I barely went out at all because I chose to be careful with money and work hard - although I always had money to drive up to Auckland, and that made my year great, so swings and roundabouts.
  
  I also wish I'd taken more photos. I took heaaaaaaaaaaaaaaps, but I could have still taken more. You can never take too many, because when you get home from taking 200 photos of your beautiful niece and find that she had at least one eye shut in 98% of them, you realise you probably should have snapped a few more just in case.
• What do I wish I'd done less of in 2012?
  Bone breakage. That sucked.
• What was the worst thing about 2012? What would I not want repeated? What did I learn from that experience?It  really does go without saying that breaking my other wrist was the biggest challenge of the year. It sucked. But, I tried to turn it into a positive in many ways, and I've already talked far too much about the whole experience on here. So, apart from the wrist, .................................... honestly, I just sat and thought about it for a good two minutes and I actually cannot think of a single other thing to fill this space. I did well this year. I was insanely happy approx 92% of the time. That's pretty spectacular.
  
  Actually, you know what sucked a tiny bit...? Lack of love. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
  
• What three words sum up 2012 for me?
  massively.freaking.awesome.
• What did I think I would achieve in 2012, but didn't? Why not? What did I achieve that was unexpected?
  Geeez... I got into my course, was offered my dream projects, got a job at my dream company, moved into my dream house......What more do you want?!  Actually, I planned on doing the Auckland half marathon, but broke my wrist the week earlier, so that didn't happen. I totally didn't expect to get my job, but I did, so that was awesome.
• Who have been the most important and supportive people in my life in 2012?
  This was one of the best things about breaking my wrist - having the most important and awesome people in my life prove how awesome they are without even trying. I have thanked them all profusely, yet they all tell me it was nothing. But it really wasn't. Even the sweet 'just checking in' texts I got when I couldn't summon up the energy to reply really made my days better. And it's nice to know that because of that big drama, my friendships were made a lot stronger and I value them all the more.
   
• If I could change one thing about 2012, what would it be? I'm not even going to say the broken wrist - I learned some lessons, I gained some clarity, and I got a cool scar. Whatevs. I would like to change the fact that I spent waaaaay too much time thinking about the wrong people, and not enough time realising that other awesome people were right in front of me. I also wish I'd thought less with my heart and thought more about how I present myself to others. That's an important lesson to learn from, I think.
• The three* things I am most grateful for in 2012 are:
• my friends and family
• my camera
• my new home by the water
• wine
• my dad bringing back manchego from Hawaii on a bi-monthly basis
• my parents learning how to smoke their own salmon
• baking therapy - it's the new retail therapy
• books
• knowing when to say no, and when to say yes - both equally important
• shiny new babies from amazing unions of beautiful people
• knowing exactly what I want in life. Onwards!

* (I know, I don't care. I make up my own rules)

Do yours! That was fun!