The Year of the Snake

And so we bid farewell to 2010 and the Noughties. I spent Millennium Eve in a small restaurant in Putney with my then-boyfriend Henry. I was 23. We'd been together for three years and I was pretty darn certain I'd spend the rest of my life with him. I was deputy editor of a pop magazine, living with my parents, and he was running a web design start-up with two friends in Dalston. We broke up, unacrimoniously, in 2001. Now he's an IT teacher and lives with his girlfriend of several years in a bungalow just outside Canterbury. I've been a PA in a City bank for a fair while and have far less clue about the future than I did ten years ago.

2010's not been the greatest for me although it's certainly had some spectacular moments. It started high as a kite, drunk and delighted in Prague, peaked again in March with probably the best holiday of my adult life in Finland, followed by the baking bliss of a glorious Glasto in June. Since then there have been many fun times: Morocco was relaxing, Paris was inspiring, Edinburgh was funny, the school reunion was hilarious, Lady Gaga was fantastic, Twitter has been life altering, and the Boris Bikes have been transformational. But there's been an awful lot of introspection too: a fair amount of heartache in the early portion and, for the past six months, the strange void left by the boyban, which was without doubt the single most important decision I made this year. It's left me utterly and terrifyingly bare, unable to distract myself from the truth, and I think I'm more honest, more vulnerable and more confused now than I was at the beginning - and I mean all of those things as positives.

If growing up is about realising we know nothing, then I am certainly a fair bit older and wiser than I was twelve months ago (when I was still convinced that the only way missing from my life was a man) and categorically better off than I was ten years ago, when pretty much my whole identity was Being Henry's Girlfriend And Interviewing Popstars. Not that that was a bad place to be, but it's not quite a picture of someone with a strong inner core of self-esteem. When I first went into therapy about five years ago, I remember describing myself as totally surface - together on the outside but an empty mess within, like a Rubik's Cube - easily able to alter my colourful outer persona to suit my audience. Sure, underneath there's an unattractive jumble of strings and black plastic underneath, but who cares about that as long as the others are fooled? These days things are slowly reversing and the value I place on the opinions of others is fading. I'll never turn their volume down all the way, and I don't want to - but there's more in my middle than taut lengths of fishing wire (NB this metaphor only really works if you've taken apart a Rubik's Cube). As I've started to care less about how I'm perceived, I've actually grown a bit more fond of myself, which in turn has made me feel less like I have something to prove. Which has probably ended up making me more attractive to that audience I used to be obsessed about pleasing. And that's a nice irony.

So. 2011. It's weird but perhaps fitting that I'm going into it feeling fairly zen, actually. I have no idea what it will bring and I'm not sure I'm really that fussed either way. I'm sure it'll be OK. I don't know if I'll still be in my job in another 365 days but I kind of hope I am. The boyban still holds, for how long I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to writing more, and travelling somewhere hot at some point. I'd like to get better at the ukulele, take some good photographs, do a lot of yoga, learn to use my sewing machine, see some good music at Glasto and elsewhere, be a good friend, a good daughter and a good member of society. I'm ending 2010 feeling exceptionally grateful to the many people who've been supportive to me, and thankful to those who've been unreliable or disappointing - I've learned from you too. Right. I'm off to meditate and make lunch. Wishing you all a great night out. But a) don't worry if it's rubbish, it doesn't really matter. And b) if it IS really fun, spare a thought for those who are struggling. You're one of the very lucky ones. Happy New Year.