Already gone.

2013.

Taking stock of past events is a favourite pastime around New Years Eve, probably since the concept was invented. It seems almost like a rite of passage into the new year. We like to think about what went well, but mosly we like to look back on things we'd like to change. And then we make resolutions and we toast ourselves at midnight, quietly promising that things will be different after the turn of the clock. Like that second is magical. It'll change even us... Or so we hope.

2013 was definitely a weird year. I've had my fair share of disappointments and oddly enough, I'm ending it on a completely different note than how I started. Proof that the supersition about ending a year the same way you started it is nothing more than hot air. Last year I counted down the seconds in a happy drug-fuelled haze and this year... Well, let's just say that neither happy, nor drug-fuelled will happen. It's more contemplative than anything else.

I finally got over the fear of writing for publications and managed to publish for my school newspaper. Nothing big, definitely not major, but a step forward for my personal development. Hooray. I'm still nowhere near where I want to be, but they say something about every journey beginning with a small step. So I think I'm on the right path.

Attacked by a small bout of depression when the cold season hit, I realised that my rose-colored glasses were just an illusion. I've spent almost an entire year hoping that the happy tint will rub off the glasses and splash into life. And then I crashed and finally saw that that's something that belongs in magic shows. Life is more of a cautionary tale than it is a fairy tale, and towards the end of 2013, I'm learning to deal with that. Key word: still ongoing. Love is not a universal cure for anything; love is a modern invention for people to fool themselves into believing that any other person could ever give a damn about someone else. There's practical and then there's insane. And love falls completely under the second category.

Another year, gone. Life always hands us the same things until we learn. I'm still a fool. I'm still trying to convince myself that life is more than just 'getting on with it'. But I haven't learnt this year either. Maybe next year.