New Year: contentedness

[helenic]

It is 01.11am and already the second day of 2004. I have no idea why I'm still awake when I have been bleary all day with sleep-deprivation, especially since I have to be up at 8am tomorrow morning to visit my godfather in Roydon, but as I went to bed I could tell there were whole hordes of unpleasant tearful self-destructive thoughts lurking on the edge of awareness. I read Voyage of the Dawn Treader for a while, forcing myself to concentrate on other things, but I knew that the moment I put the book down they would rush in and overwhelm me. So I turned my computer on, and am now very much awake, if in the strange, dreamlike, slightly surreal way that one is awake late at night after very little sleep.

I have limited memories of last night, but I know that despite the fact that I threw up about six times, passed out in the lounge and allowed several rather unsavoury men to kiss me, I had marvellous fun. We got dressed and drunk at Richard's house and after lots of fiddling with corsetry and using far too many different shades of eyeliner and drinking port (us) and Southern Comfort (him) out of silver goblets in High Ponce Style, we tumbled into the taxi and talked loudly to the taxi driver about inappropriate things like fetish all the way to Elise's house. In fact I was so tipsy I forgot not only my camera but also my phone, so could not have texted anyone Happy New Year even if I'd been focussed enough to type. Clare looked stunning and her hat had a distinct Film Noir quality to it, and I was dressed as a piratical wench, complete with silly three-cornered hat. There was lots of declamatory conversation in the kitchen, and straight men snogging each other (and even somehow snogging lesbians, although Richard at this point fell over, which from a height of over 6 foot is quite dramatic, colliding with the table and large amounts of pizza and vodka on the way to the floor and dragging Clare (the girl in question) down with him - although she miraculously managed not to spill her drink). I drank more port, and red bull and vodka (employing the infamous technique of topping the can up with vodka as I drank the red bull), and ate scotch eggs and talked for ages to a lovely girl called Louise who's a grad at Downing and also a sort-of-Christian (we were both wearing outrageously gothic crosses) and I'm sure there was other stuff but I can't remember. Clare lay on the landing for a while and I went to keep her company and found I couldn't get up myself. We had bubbly at 2 minutes to midnight and no-one knew any of the words to Auld Lang Syne, and I think I drank most of the bubbly. At one point I picked up my hat in horror and exclaimed "oh no! the skull and crossbones have fallen off!" but it turned out I was looking at the wrong side, which caused much mirth to the people sitting near me. There was an adorable little four-year-old boy called ("oh," someone said to me in the kitchen, "what's his name, something alcoholic") Benedict who tottered about being very solemn and precocious and charming all the goths. I gave him my hat for a bit; he made a fantastic pirate. Then I was very cold and wrapped myself in my coat and dozed on the sofa half-listening to the conversation going on around me until suddenly it was 5am and Richard had, amazingly, roused sufficiently to call a taxi.

So. 2004. The year I am twenty. I did not write down any New Year's Resolutions last January because it was the day after my nana's funeral and I wasn't writing in livejournal, so I can't tell you how well I kept them. I was intending to write a summary of the last twelve months at some point, but now is not the time. However, I have some ideas for the next twelve:

• To not fall in love. Actually I think that I'm unlikely to, but I don't trust myself and it really would be an appalling idea if I did. I am determined not to. I will get to know me, learn how to enjoy life without one single person making it worthwhile. It's harder that way, but a much more valuable life skill.


• To keep up with work and stop making excuses. To get a solid 2.1 in June, or, if possible, a 1. To do myself justice for the first time in my life, or at least make a reasonable attempt at it.


• To write down all the stories that have been rushing round my head the past few weeks, even if they will be self-indulgent and practically unreadable. To try to stop being such a creative perfectionist that I never begin anything.


• To continue to eat sensibly, and neither lose nor gain silly amounts. To try and start doing some sort of exercise - swimming perhaps, or squash.


• To really work at a manageable friendship with Iain, and not be too clingy, and not tell him too much about how I feel about him. Learn to maintain some sort of distance whilst being reliable and there.


• To eat more fruit, less crisps and stop being so absolute all the time.


• To actually do something with my domain.


• To learn some self-discipline, and start to control my procrastination.


• To continue to drink too much wine, and dance stupidly in public places.


• To go to church on Sunday morning, even if it is only college chapel.


• To start meditating again.

And ... oh, I could carry on for ages. Here's to a gratuitous opportunity to make a fresh start, because you can't have too many. I will continue to be outrageously ambitious and I will continue to muddle along and think too much and cry too much and yet somehow manage to be really secure and happy and do enough work to get by. I will carry on reading a lot and making plans and living. Awful things happened in 2003 - what with the war, and my nameless nine-month Eating Thing wherein I lost and gained the same stone and a half about six times, and being so stupid as to lose Iain, and spending two terms and the long vacation doing very little but be miserable (that's an exaggeration). But it was okay, and I've grown a hell of a lot, I think, and I'm sort of confident that the next year is going to work out better.

My neck is aching and my feet are cold. I am going to go back to bed and carry on reading my book until I fall asleep with the light on. I can always nap in the car tomorrow. I love my godfather; it will be lovely to see him again.