my 2009… in an egg shell **Happy New Year**

I think New Years for some brings a sense of joy and relief, a feeling that another year has passed successfully, or perhaps just by its whisker, but either way, another year has passed.

Me? I laid awake with raging insomnia on Monday night, playing and replaying my 2009 over and over and over again in my schizophrenic little head. I started to hyperventilate, my shortness of breath accentuated by Panu’s insanely slow and steady breaths. How can he sleep so still? Honestly, sometimes in the middle of the night, I poke him til he grunts because otherwise I wouldn’t know if he was actually alive.

But me, insomnia with its hideous tendrils, creeping into my heart and pumping up my resting heart rate so that there is no rest in me. Clawing at my head, filling it with thoughts of utter uselessness, of under achievement, of crap that I can do nothing about right now. And not even tomorrow, because the year has already passed, and there is nothing I have to show for it.

I got up and paced around the living room, because… I don’t really know why. To tire myself out? But all it does is compound my anxiety, I feel like I’m going insane, I feel rabid, insecure, senseless, idiotic, completely derailed.

I feel like an egg, my shiny exterior a decoy for my fragile shell and the utter… mush… that lays within. Like a mere pin prick could send a hairline fracture along my fascade and that’s it, I’ll fall apart and be nothing but a gooey mess on the kitchen floor. Or on the bench. Or maybe just in a bowl.

Wait a minute – an egg??

Get an effin’ grip on yourself, would ya catty. People gonna think you’re mad.

Ok, so I do a downward dog or two, bring my heart rate down and slowly crawl back into a bed that is warm and soft and welcomes me home. I try not to think at all, but you know that doesn’t ever really work, so instead of thinking about what I didn’t achieve in 2009, I thought about what I did.

My 2009…

… and I’m doing this in point form because lord knows nor you or I have all day to read this rubbish…

• 2009 was my second year in London. I got used to the cold and cursed the lacklustre summers less. Only a little bit less. I got used to the crowds, or maybe I just pushed harder. I walked more, and saw more of the city.
• I spent 5 weeks back home in March, I saw my friends and family and most specially, met the new little people in my life ~ Lachie, Alana, Linden and Keira. I also got sunburnt at Manly Beach, which I welcomed a little more than I should.
• In 2009, I breathed the air of even more cities than 2008 ~ Rome, Barcelona, Tunis, Lille, Stockholm, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Alicante, San Francisco, Las Vegas and the City of Angels.
• Work progressed in leaps and bounds in 2009. We’re finally making a dent. “We” being my boss and I, someone who I can honestly say I love working for, and that I realise is a true blessing.
• Panu and I made three years. Three years. What a record.
• I made some awesome new friends this year, some through this blog, some through twitter and others through my existing friends who I cherish more than anything in this world. Except for my family.
• In 2009 I entered a whole new decade. I welcomed my thirties with open arms, a lunch at The Fat Duck, some Jimmy Choos and a new haircut.
• I became even more tech-ni-fied with my netbook, camera and blackberry. Nerd.
• I read some books that have made more than a dent in my life, including Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, and all the books borne of Neil Gaiman‘s fantastical imagination. I think I read about 30 books this year. Book worm and nerd.
• I baked for the very first time in June this year. Completely insane. I even made red velvet cupcakes and holy crap, I also made ice cream.
• And lastly but definitely not leastly, I started this blog in May 2009. I left my blogspot behind and ventured forth with WordPress. I have not looked back since.
• Oh, and I ate a lot.

Wow, reflecting back on all that I really don’t know what I was hyperventilating about. No actually I do know. I’m a perfectionist and somehow nothing, not even the profoundly successful year I’ve had ever feels like I’ve done enough.

I joke that I don’t have any resolutions for 2010. I say that I’m aiming low, so that no matter what happens I will over achieve. But in reality I do have goals for 2010, but sharing them out loud would be hanging myself out to dry. They’re my secrets, and I’ll share them when the time is right.

For now, I hope you all ring in the new year in style, at home, mad drunk or in a stupefying drug f**ked state. What? I’m just calling it like it is.

I’ll be having some casual drinks at Bar Music Hall if anyone’s keen to drop by, followed by a cruisy few days to start the year.

And the egg? What’s a broken egg but the start of a nice hot breakfast?