2. New

I remember last January, when I was still in China with my family, on the very last day we were there and before we were to fly back to Australia and proceed with the 'normalities' of our lives, I sat in a cafe with my mum. Over chocolate cakes and coffee we talked about our goals for the year. The reason this memory seems so strange to me is that it feels way too vivid to have happened more than twelve months ago. At first I thought it had happened this year but I realised that's impossible because I've been Australia since the start of the new year.

All the things we talked about flooded into my mind at once like how we wanted to plant a tree in our backyard, or how I was going to cook dinner every weekend for the family or even just that I was going to completely dedicate myself to my schoolwork unlike all the years before. And suddenly I was overcome with this wave of sadness because it was then that I realised; we hadn't done so many of the things we said we would.

I remember so clearly the hope in our faces as we heard our wildest dreams spoken out loud for the first time. Some of the things we mentioned felt so silly and childish yet they were exactly the things we wanted and the things that we knew would make us the happiest.

We talked about some heavier topics as well. And thinking about all the things we spoke about and knowing what has happened in the last 12 months makes me feel like I've traveled back in time to that moment and I'm trying to warn ourselves about what's going to happen but I can't.

There are many, many things I wished hadn't happened in 2012 and I've never felt so much grief and agony in my heart for anything, ever.

But I know that everything in life happens for reason and even when it doesn't seem to make sense, sometimes it's just there to teach you or make you feel something. And that's the hardest lesson of all; accepting it.

In a way, I'll never be able to completely accept 2012. I don't regret anything, I guess, but I won't forget the things I did and didn't do.

I know it would be foolish and naive of me to think or expect that 2013 is going to be any different. I know, the next 11 or months will be just as hard, just as heart-breaking and just as important.

I'm so grateful for 2013 and I know the only way for it to be a better year than 2012, is for me to be a better person in 2013.