I can’t quite wait to say goodbye to 2013. In some aspects, 2013 has been kind. However, in other aspects, it’s been a horrible year.

Friends have been mugged, I got into a major accident, friends lost jobs, dad had a massive heart attack, the uke and I are no longer together, lost a few projects, house has been leaking etc etc etc.

On a good note though, I went to Japan for the second time, did NOT lose my job, had some new experiences at work, travelled completely solo to Penang and Singapore (separate trips), made my personal best at SCKLM and then at Penang Bridge 10KM, made level 7 in Ingress AND had my short story published in a dead tree anthology (by dead tree I mean printed onto paper).

So many new things, and yet so many old too. I’ve made some closer connections, lost quite a few, and overall, have been trying to consolidate myself. Pieces of me have scattered through the aether, and I’ve spent a long time picking them up. In a way it’s a lot like Lyra’s own story. She started off with knowing how to use the alethiometer by instinct, but by the end of the series, has to relearn everything that came so easily before.

My life feels a lot like Lyra’s. It wasn’t as full of feelings and hurts as it is now. It’s not quite the easy game I was led to believe. Trying to please everyone, including myself at the same time is a lot of work, especially when it turns out I’ve been wanting to please the people who matter only because they have rejected me. In the long run, they don’t matter, but like a lot of things, it hasn’t been an easy thing to accept.

So many things have happened this year, that I can only hope Hettar was right, “Events are like horses, they’ll gallop and then slow down again.”