“2012 has been great for me. But really, can you not think of one good thing that has happened for you in the year 2012?” 


"Honestly, no. everything was pretty much stagnant, it was like my life was on a standstill.”


As I hear the words tumble out of my mouth, I couldn't help but feel a slight tinge of self-pity and shame for myself. Across me sits someone who’s proudly sharing the achievements of his life in the past year and his journey to rediscovering self-efficacy, and I had nothing to offer him but threads of complaints.


As every new year looms close, I've never felt the compelling need like many others to sit down on new year’s eve and try desperately to capture and keep count of ‘memorable’ moments of the year before they disappear permanently into the abyss of forgotten memories. Maybe I have always just found the task of laying down new resolutions a little bit too tedious, or maybe I've always just been secretly afraid of reviewing my own performance during the year and actually finding out that I had nothing to pride about (and the subsequent blow to my self-esteem). But that day, I went home and joined the united tradition of many millions of people from different corners of the globe: to sit in a corner by myself and reflect.


My life can’t be that bad. 



It cannot be.


True enough, as I sat there, clinging and gasping for air as I tried summoning every ‘worthwhile’ moments of the year, the memories slowly begin to resurface and align themselves against an invisible axis. But strangely enough the deeper immersed in thoughts that I am, the more I find myself dismissing the tendency to recall the sequential, detailed ticking seconds of every fucking moments. Instead, I spent the time remembering every person that I've met in 2012 and the feelings that they've left me with. There was the handsome and proud Croatian with a husky masculine voice whom opened my eyes to the kinds of scars decades of battle can leave for a future younger generation; there was the French audio engineer with his big ginger Afro whom I shall always think of whenever being enveloped by the fruity aromas of shisha… then there are the people whom I've started speaking to again after brushes of heartaches and disappointments.


Only with these feelings I know I've truly lived the moment, and that I am alive- that I've lived, loved, ached and truly is. And maybe, just maybe, in that moment of feeling, I've allowed an older, more stubbornly inadequate part of me to let go in order for change to occur. Change comes with how you make of these feelings.


I have changed in the year, maybe a small, minute change. but I have changed nevertheless. And I will grow.


This is what a ‘moment’ should be about.


2012 may be not be the best year for me, but it has been the best that I can make out of in a year.


What I want for the new year is to write a new story, a better story. I want to be asked the same question again and feel myself swelling with pride. Yes, that shall be my new year’s resolution.






Sheeling