Welcome 2010!!

For me, 2009 was a year wrought with difficulties, but also sparkles with great memories. I'll never forget my trip to New Orleans with some of my closest friends. Or the Twilight birthday party that we threw for a friend. Then there was the karaoke.

All in all, it was a good year. Some of the best friendships of my life solidified in 2009, and I know that I will always have those. I loved and lived in 2009. What more could I ask for?

But as I look on this next year, the year that I'll be turning 30 - a number that I dread for some reason. When I think about anything after that I'm not phased (at least not yet), but 30 has always had this ... dread associated with it for me. By the time I was 30 there was going to be so many things that I had accomplished in my life - at least that's what I thought at 16. *laughs* How things change from your view when you're 16.

So now I'm a mere 5 months from 30 (yes, I keep repeating it to dull it). And I look back and realize that there are many things that I've not accomplished. Many things I've never done.

So now I'm looking forward. This year, I'm going to start DOING. Start living. My mantra of late has been this:

Live life. Love deeply. Regret nothing.

The first two are pretty natural to me. Regret nothing. That's a bit more difficult. But no less important. This is the year that I start checking things off my list of what I want to do. There are some dreams that are gone by the wayside, hardly able to return. And that's fine. I can let them lie there and look back on them fondly, or perhaps with a bit of wistfulness. But there are others that I still have the ability to accomplish.

So 2010 is going to be the year I start. I signed up for a class this spring, and will be starting in January...providing that I get in from the wait-list. It's a prerequisite in order for me to get into the nursing program. Something that I've always felt I'd be good at.

I've taken steps to make sure that I'm able to complete the book I've started. Going to people for help and research that I had previously put off. And I've re-committed to writing here as well. Including adding some more reading order lists (hopefully sometime today) as they help me so much, and I hope they help others too.

And I've started to plan the trips I've always wanted to take. Ireland, Scotland, and Britain seem to be the first on the list this year. I'd also like to get a HIM, Muse, and My Chemical Romance concert in sometime this year - if at all possible. I'm still waiting impatiently for the HIM US concert dates.

So here's a kind of rambling start to 2010.

I hope that everyone had a fantastic 2009, and has a better 2010 - or as one of my favorite quotes goes:

"May the best day of your past, be the worst day of your future."