I keep thinking back to the past year, and marvelling at how far I’ve come. Even just sitting around eating dinner with my family, I notice how different I am from the person who was here last year.

Last Christmas, if you recall, I had a very freshly-broken heart. I was defeated and broken down, and I could see no real reason to be happy.

In January I relapsed back into that old relationship, where I was basically letting myself get emotionally bitchslapped at every chance. I learned who my best friends were, though. I had an amazing birthday, and I realized just how much the people around me love me.

In February I got into a rebound relationship. I told myself I needed to be tough and strong, because all men are good for is sex and making me feel like shit about myself. I needed to be able to stand up for myself.

By March that guy had become very aggressive. He never hit me — if he had, things would have gone very differently (aka his funeral). As it was, I stood by my philosophy of “hurt him before he hurts you” and things went badly. It ended up with me telling him that if he contacted me again I would be getting a restraining order — with us in the same classes, that would have made getting an education difficult for one or both of us.

But the end of March is where things turned around. There was this guy from my class who I started talking to a lot. At first I thought he was kind of awkward, and he talked wayyy too much about movies. But then we talked more and more and I ended up going to his place to watch movies. I made him dinner, we went for a walk, and we shared our first kiss. 

The first of many.

April and May I spent with Chris. I ended up moving into his apartment (despite having my own brand-new one-year lease) in April, and I haven’t left since. We got to know each other quickly, and became best friends as well as lovers.

In June we went to Chicago. I had never left the country without my parents before, let alone with someone who I had essentially only met a few months’ prior. It was a scary trip, but I did it! 

July and August were a blur. I worked every single day, between two jobs. I was working 60+ hours most weeks. I spent what little time I had off hanging out with Chris and I found the time to visit my parents once.

September we went back to school. I walked in as the reigning champion and was quickly put into my place. The third years told me it was going to be a hard semester, and I was scared, but I didn’t take the time to prepare for what was going to happen.

October the workload started to pick up. I finally quit my second job so I would have some more spare time. Chris and I were closer than ever. We had our issues, of course, but we are a team and so we worked together to overcome them. This was the first time I realized just how much Chris gets into special occasions. He was ready for Halloween for weeks in advance. His Heisenberg costume took the centre stage at school.

November was when the school crunch began. We barely saw each other, we barely slept, we barely ate. It was brutal. We had multiple assignments due each week, and not enough time to complete them all.

Now it’s December. My final grades came in, and I didn’t do nearly as well as I hoped. My final average was 71%. I was devastated. The stress of the school year plus the distance Chris and I were feeling was crushing for me. I’m so grateful to have such a supportive partner who wouldn’t complain when I woke him up in the middle of the night with my crying. He just held me and helped me calm down.

And now we’re at the end of 2012. Christmas has been fantastic (aside from the fact that my mother drives me frigging insane) and I got lots of gifts that were exactly what I wanted/needed: a new winter coat, new boots, a hand mixer, a food processor.

So I guess this has been a pretty damned good year.