2010 Overview and a Thank You

I hate New Year's Eve.

It's just so much pressure. You need to go to the best party, have the perfect midnight kiss, and make resolutions for the new year.

Also, I really hate fireworks.

Last year, I was home alone on New Year's Eve. I watched Bring It On and danced around my basement to Ke$ha's TiK ToK. I made one resoultion: I was going to have fun in 2010.

I kept it. 2010 was one of the best years of my life.

The last half of 2009 was terrible. I hated my first semester of university, and you're not supposed to hate your first semester of university. You're supposed to make the best friends you'll ever make and have the most fun you'll ever have and live the best years you'll ever live. That didn't happen to me. I don't have a problem with people drinking, but everyone seemed to have a problem with the fact that I don't drink. I I hated living in residence, and my only friends on my floor were friends I'd had since high school. I did well academically, but, that was because I obsessed over my schoolwork to the point where I had no life outside of it. I didn't write. I didn't dance. I didn't spend time with God like I needed to. I didn't make plans with my friends. I worked and watched everyone around me have the time of their lives.

Guess it's no surprise that I was miserable, eh?

I knew that something needed to change in 2010. As mentioned, I made the resolution to have more fun, but I didn't really know what that meant. When 2010 came around, I didn't change overnight. There was no epiphany where I realized, "If I do x, y, and z, I'll be happy." Little things just started to change around and in me, and it led to happiness. I was still a perfectionist when it came to my schoolwork second semester (honestly, I still am one now), but it wasn't as bad as it was first semester. Funny thing is, I did better second semester than I did first semester. I started to make friends at school and I became particularly close to my school's Christian Fellowship. I danced and spent more time with God. Things weren't perfect at the beginning of 2010, especially since I was dealing with a particularly nasty illness, but things were better.

Then May came around, I had four months of summer vacation, and I decided to write again. Up until I graduated high school, I was a fanfiction writer. I loved it, and don't regret a second of it. But, even though I'd tried to write a novel a couple times before with no success, I made a promise to myself that I'd stop writing fanfiction by the time I graduated high school, and focus on writing a novel instead. I kept the first half of that promise, but as I said, I didn't write during my first year of university. I didn't even write the summer between high school and university. I don't know what my motivation was to start writing again in May, to be honest. I just knew that I needed to.

I wrote fanfiction on small a message board opposed to posting it somewhere like fanfiction.net, so there was a real sense of community there, and that was my favourite thing about it. I was scared to write without a community supporting me, like I thought I'd have to do if I wrote a novel.

Then I started this blog, and realized I had nothing to be afraid of.

I'm not sure we always realize how rare and wonderful it is to have a group of people, most of whom have never met, who support each other like the YA community does, especially since we all more or less have the same goals. I didn't think anyone would read my first post, but all of you were quick to welcome me into this family, and there are no words for how much I appreciate it. Honestly, I'm getting emotional writing this because you guys have done so much for me, and I'm just overwhelmed by it. Every comment means the world to me. Every post you write on your own blogs has helped me to become a better writer.

There are two moments I can point to in 2010 and go, "This is when I became happy again." One is when I joined the leadership team for my school's Christian Fellowship and found my university family. The other is when I started this blog and found my online family.

I needed to write again. Thank you for helping me write. Thank you for helping me become happy again again. Thank you for everything.

I had so much fun in 2010.

I currently do not have plans for New Year's Eve. I have two Bring it On movies saved on my DVR and Ke$ha's We R Who We R on my playlist. I'm making one resolution: I'm going to have even more fun in 2011.