Progress Without Movement

I've reached that point in my week where I sit here and try to find something to write. I don't know if I struggle because I have too much to say, or because I have too little. I feel that in this instance, it is the former.

You see, I woke up yesterday morning in a state that's left me a little worse for wear. Arguably, not the worst hangover I've ever had, but it appears that the older I get, the more of an effect alcohol seems to have on me. Shit, at 17 I would drink anything I could find and wake up the next day as fresh as an early Spring morning. Nowadays I've had to resign myself to the fact that a few drinks on a Friday night will leave me bedridden until Sunday morning. Such is the inadvertent sacrifice of age.

This got me thinking about what else has changed over the years; where I am now, compared to where I was "then". I've thought upon the miles I must have walked, and where they've ultimately led me and I've realised that it's all too easy to wake up every morning and feel like you're in the same place you've been for years, for no other reason than because you physically are.

Maybe this is because we tend to measure progress in the spatial dimensions; distance travelled, heights climbed and so on. But if you were to sit in the same place for one whole year and devote that time to learning as much as you could, would you be the same person you were 12 months ago? You won't have moved, but I guarantee you'll be a very different person. Albeit, with a bad cramp.

As many of you know, I consider my life to be a journey towards a worthwhile story. My journey over the last year has been a very strange one. I have experienced the absolute heights and depths of my emotional spectrum and as I reach the end of it, there are a few people that I feel I should thank. After all, what makes a journey more than the people you meet whilst you're on it?

So in no particular order, I give the following people my thanks.

I thank Jack Freeburn for saving my life, and I thank Matt Pike for being a brother to me in the truest sense. I thank Jacob Dobby for being my best friend for the 17 years that I've known him, and I thank Hannah Lloyd for being that light in my hand that keeps me smiling. I thank Becca Peters for reigniting the creative spark that I thought I had lost a long time ago, and I thank my Ma for making the home I've had all my life. I thank Ben Ross for turning into a brother that I am immeasurably proud of, and I thank Tom Chester for being an older brother in whom I see a strength I hope to one day achieve.

Lastly, I thank Charlotte Kelly. Thank you for being the deepest love of my life for the time that you were in it. Thank you for the times that you tried to understand what I was going through, and thank you for standing by me for as long as you did; you were a saint to do so. For that, you will always be my friend.

I thank anybody that has changed me into the person I am, for better or worse. Some of you were in my life for the briefest of moments, and yet you have had an impact that you will never know.

So to anybody reading this, I ask you to look back at the last 12 months and consider the people who have shaped you. Thank them, because you may feel the effects of their friendships for the rest of your life.

Lastly, consider who you were at the beginning of the year. Are you the same person? I know I'm not.

So here's to next year. To the friends we've yet to meet, and to the people we'll become.