This is it, this is now, this is me

Yesterday was the first day of a brand new year. I know it's cliched to think of a new year as a new beginning - it's just another day after all. However symbolically 2010 really does mark the end of a negative time in my life and what I very much hope will be the beginning of a new phase of positivity. It marks the end of passivity, of waiting, of hoping that someone will come along and make my life better, and the start of me standing up, strong and proud and taking control of my life to make my dreams reality. It may not be happening the way I've always imagined it would, but I can still make it happen, I don't need to let that dream pass me by because the right man hasn't come along. I'm empowered by the knowledge that I can do it on my own - that the keys to my happiness are in the palm of my hand - and it's such a relief. The burden of trying to make dead-end relationships work, of trying to meet men, no longer weighs me down making every step I take a heavy one. I can walk lightly, confidently and with more determination knowing that I don't need to wait any longer.

Let me dwell for one last moment on the events of 2009, so that I can bid them a proper farewell and leave them behind, where they belong. There hasn't been a tougher year in my life. Worse things have happened, yes, but in so far as how difficult they were to deal with the events of 2009 left me reeling and feeling more devastated than I'd ever been before. Looking back, I'm not quite sure how I pulled myself together and carried on. I've never been so let down by a person in my life - I've always seen the best in people, always expected that people will do the right thing, treat other people well, and that faith in humanity was completely shattered by the actions of one person who for a while I thought was my best friend. Despite his cruel actions, I kept on hoping that he would redeem himself, that there must be a decent person in there somewhere, but every time I was let down. I gave him a chance to be sorry, but he'd turned the situation around in his own head to become one where I was at fault, so that he could excuse his appalling behaviour. At the point I knew I had to give it up - give up hoping that he'd regret his actions, that he still cared about me and was sorry for how he treated me. Some people just don't have the capacity to ever put anyone else first, to ever care enough about another person that their needs are considered on an equal footing to their own. So, I don't want a person like that in my life, I have mentally shoved him out beyond the point at which he would have the power to hurt me again. Unfortunately I still have to see him, still have to tolerate him, but he's no longer someone I consider a friend, he's nobody to me now, and that's how it's going to stay.

Sadly, I have lost a little faith - faith in my own judgement, faith that people are going to be essentially good and well-meaning. But maybe that's not such a bad thing. I've seen the good in people when it's not really there and I've blindly carried on hoping for the best from someone who was never going to make the grade far too many times, and here is where it ends. Only the people who prove themselves worth it are going to be let into my life from now on. Only people who add something to my life, who show that they care and who have a positive influence. The rest can stay away.

Actually my judgement has not let me down - my instincts are good, it's my ability to follow them that's weak. It's when I ignore or override my instincts that I get into trouble. I knew he was someone I shouldn't get involved with when I first met him. I knew he wasn't good relationships material but I let lust, fun and living for the moment get in the way of the wiser instinctual knowledge about what was good for me in the long-term. Never again. At some point I have to become older AND wiser and stop making the same mistakes over and over again. This is that point.

So, 2010 is the start of a new phase, a new approach. I want to live my life in such a way that in five, ten years time I don't look back and have major regrets. I want to have tried my best to make my life what I want it to be. So I'm focussed on having a baby, on becoming a mother. It is what I've always wanted and is what matters to me the most. I realise that the innate restlessness I've experienced throughout my working life - moving from job to job, career to career - is because no 'job' can ever give me the satisfaction I'd get from the role of being a mother - that is where I'll find my true identity, my true reason for living. Meeting a man to share my life with is secondary to that. If it happens at some point in the future, if I meet someone who really is my best friend, who wants the best for me and my child/children, who is essentially a good, trustworthy, honest person who also makes me laugh and floats my boat, then great, but it's no longer my raison d'etre. The pressure is off. My priorities now lie elsewhere.

Bring it on 2010, I am ready.