The Changing of Times (So long, 2010)

January: I am still reeling over the death of my last-living grandparent at the end of 2009. She was the only one I ever really knew; her husband died when I was a baby and my dad’s parents both died in the same year when I was only 11 years old. She was a hell of a woman - so strong, even into her 90’s – everyone feared one of her ‘clip round the ear’oles’. She used to say I was her favourite.
 

That same month K and I broke up. Although we were still ‘unofficially’ a couple right the way through to her eventual departure, it was the beginning of the end. I leave her house and get on the motorway in a fragile state of mind; I’m caught speeding by a mobile police van that, according to the documents, left that spot just 13 seconds after snapping me. That was a bad day. The fine arrived through my door not long after.

Fast forward a couple of months and we find my Dad in hospital with years’ worth of alcohol abuse finally catching up with him; his liver is shutting down. It’s touch and go for a while and we all ready ourselves for the worst. But eventually, after months of treatment, a stent installed inside him, litres of fluid drained from his abdomen, thousands of diuretics and other pills and strict orders that he can never drink again he pulled through. I think more than anything the hardest part was seeing my Mum like she was.

Back to K’s house; we’re exchanging letters and final kisses as she walks me to my car. We’ve just spent the weekend together pretending like this moment wasn’t coming. We visited a safari park and a zoo and took a random trip to some town in the arse-end of nowhere - but we found the fun in it as we always did. I can barely believe this is goodbye. I can’t actually comprehend that there’s every possibility that I won’t see this beautiful girl that I love so much ever again. I hold back wild marriage proposals in the hope that she’ll stay. I don’t cry. I get in my car and drive away. I was tortured by the memories of this day for months. I couldn’t believe I left. I hated myself for it. I thought of things I should of said; things I should have done; anything to stop her leaving.

The summer after she left was the lowest I’ve ever felt and I needed distraction. However, my best friend had taken off on his travels to the States and wouldn’t be back for a few months yet. I try to throw myself into work but in a country in the depths of recession I struggle to find any, and that which I can is nothing less than soul destroying.

It’s the end of summer and our family dog, Jasper, is fairly unwell. We do everything we can to make him as comfortable as possible but after a few weeks of his condition deteriorating it’s clear that we have to let him go. It hurts. I think of the 16 years we had him; we grew up together.

We’re now getting closer to the present day but things haven’t been much easier. I think about K every single day. Some days I’m fine, others I’m not. I try to avoid talking to our mutual friends for fear of hearing about her or being asked probing questions to which they could never know how complicated the answers are. I miss Jasper. I miss my Nan. And to top it all off, the Hornets had a horrendous 2009-10 season – not even making the playoffs - with talks of Chris Paul leaving to spread his wings elsewhere.

2010 did have its moments, though. I did some things I thought I’d regret but didn’t. I’ve had some nights out that will stick with me for life. I’ve been reunited with old friends; buried the hatchet with some and grown closer with others and I worked the best Fresher’s I’ve worked to date.

And such is life; where one door closes, another opens and through the bad times I found some good. For example, I excelled with my Martial Arts & MMA as being punched in the face sparring or hurting my hand breaking a brick didn’t seem so bad anymore. I was fearless and it showed in my improvement. However, the two biggest outcomes of all this year’s strife have been my gains in the gym and this blog. I channelled everything in to the gym with a renewed sense of purpose and drive to better myself. I researched the science behind everything and words such as ‘macronutrients’ and ‘hypertrophy’ became second nature. I ate smarter and trained harder; giving every session everything I could. And to this day I find motivation out of things which, once upon a time, would have weighed me down. You can read about that here.

Everything that couldn’t be smashed out in the gym, I would write about here in this blog. It was never intended to be public, let alone reach the level of views that it has done. I found when I wrote my troubles out I could take an unobstructed view of things and see what I needed to do to rectify them. This is my therapy. This blog has taught me a lot about myself. It also spurred me to create things such as my list of 30 things to do before I’m 30 and, knowing that people were reading it, a reason to start ticking them off rather than report back empty handed.

I also owe it to those bad times for giving me an incentive and the motivation to seek my own happiness rather than placing it in the hands of fate or someone else. I’ve taken life firmly in my grasp and will be fulfilling a lifelong ambition and venturing off to distant parts of the world very soon. I suppose I needed a kick to get me on my way.

I write this at a time that I’m finally letting go of the things which have haunted me. There was once a version of me that would have crumbled under the things I’ve been through this last year but I’m still here and I’m still moving forward. Come midnight on the 31st I will write this year off as experience and toast in a new year of adventure, self discovery and good times. I will walk into 2011 as a man who’s been through his own personal Hell but come out the other side stronger for it. I will walk into 2011 with a spring in my step, hope in my heart and an unrelenting anticipation of things to come.