2009 - the year in retrospect

So it's finally 2010. Everybody starts the year with resolutions and wishes, but I feel it's more fitting to start the new year by closing the past one.

Ah 2009, the year that was. To be honest , the one event that summarizes the whole year up for me is coming to London and Imperial. So many things have happened since then, and another year's worth of memories and nostalgia have been added to the vault.

The beginning of the year, when I was still in Methodist College, seems so distant now that I think of it. That's the things with memories I suppose, they distort time. When your living in the moment, happiness seems so fleeting and pain and loneliness feel like eternity, and yet, when one looks back, it seems like the happy moments would never end, and the negative ones seem like such a short and simple phase to live through. Methodist College, how I never loved you. It seems to me now that I came to Imperial straight from secondary school, and Methodist College was only a short, painful step I had to take.

I ponder, how have I changed as a person? I still believe that deep inside, the 'you' never changes. "No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all." The me, this Jonathan inside of me has always remained the same. Sure, I might have become more mature (or less, I wouldn't know), I might have become more outspoken, but that me has never changed.

As I stood in the freezing cold with my friends waiting for the start of the new decade, I wondered, and to me the most important question, have I lived fully during 2009? Have I cried, have I laughed, have I hurt, have I been spontaneous, have I caught it's beauty, have I found new experiences, new people, new outlooks? I can't honestly say I have. But that's okay. I've been searching for the answer to that for so long, and I doubt the question is something that can be answered.

And I'm proud of the way I started the year off. From couting down with hundreds (thousands?) of people to deciding to go to Soho at 3 in the morning. The trip may have been nothing to shout about, but it indicated to me a spontainety and love of life that I've been severely lacking in my life.

It feels fitting to end this post with a mention of the strongest memory (well okay, maybe 2 memories) I've had for 2009. On a trip with my university friends, at Manchester, we were in a Chinese restaurant singing karaoke while the snow was falling heavily outside. And there she was, singing her heart out. All I could do was stare at her, and to my surprise, tears glistened in my eyes. So near and yet so far, like there was this big abyss dividing me and her, that I would never be able to bridge. All I could think of as she stood there, laughing and singing, was how full of life she was. How she made me feel as if my whole life's one exciting adventure whenever I'm with her.

And standing there counting down without her felt empty.

Happy New Year people. I miss you guys.