2011...you have been...well, you've been something.
I dunno if these journals are gonna be cliche, but I decided to write one before consuming wine and waiting for fireworks to kick off.

You started out unremarkable - to me, at any rate. I was still reeling from off-and-on depression, although I wasn't sleeping through my hurt and sadness as much. I met an amazing young woman, who helped me through a lot of my anxiety problems with leaps and bounds, and then she gave me the honor of being her girlfriend. She came to visit me, and in doing so I was forced out of my comfort zone. I drove a car without my parents inside for the first time, and I stayed home without them around since...well, it's been quite some time. Years.
With her I went to my first Ren Faire, and finally got to go to the carnival that comes around during late summer.

I took some classes, made a few sorta-friends, and somehow I even managed to get a job.
This will be my first New Years where I'm employed.

During you, 2011, I met a lot of awesome people. I lost a few friends along the way, too. There are things I regret so, so much, and other things I'm happy I experienced.

For my twenty-first birthday, I went to a casino, ordered my first alcoholic drink, and gambled.

I bought two bettas, took out my first student loan, and even got my first kiss.
One could argue that I'm finally growing up - that the Sarah who started 2011 has grown into something resembling a young adult. And while I am still immature, while my emotions still run my conscious and while I still daydream and write horrific, embarrassing self-insert-y fanfic in my mind, I am slowly approaching some sense of adulthood that shocks me.
I will probably always love Disney movies, fanfic, comic books and video games. I will fall into some twisted sense of love with fictional characters, and will cry over fictional things. I will always bare some resemblance to the frizzy-haired, buck-tooth little girl who loved Pokemon and her gameboy color, even as I am slowly shying away from the comfort of always staying the same.


2012, you hold a lot of opportunities for me, along with everyone else. They say that you are the beginning of the end, and while some part of me quakes at that idea, another side of me sees you as the beginning of another chapter. It seems as though I have always rung in the new year with online friends, my parents, and nothing else save for maybe a Twilight Zone marathon. Tomorrow I will wake up, go to work, and resume what has become my normal routine. I will start this year a young, working woman who has her eyes set on new experiences and perhaps an Associate of Arts degree sometime in the future.
In you, 2012, I hope to decide on a major - some direction my education will take me. I hope to finally buy my own car, to hang out with friends, to attend anime cons and midnight video game releases. I will fangirl hard over the Avengers movie, as well as a dozen more things that I have yet to find. I would like to improve my art and find a direction for myself.

Here's to you, 2012, and all the mystery and adventure you have yet to bring.