First Thankful Friday of 2013

Today is Thankful Friday and it turns out in 2013 I already have quite a lot to be thankful for.

Problem is I can't really write about it on here. But I can tell you it's good, exciting and a little bit scary all rolled into one.

There's gonna be some change though, but what has surprised me is that I don't mind that. Change seems to happen for a reason. Change is often good.

I wasn't always like this. As a kid, I hated change, right down to the new term or someone else other than Ma giving me a lift to school in the morning. The unknown used to terrify me. I'd worry about things that hadn't, might'nt and, in all honesty, wouldn't happen.

London Aunt always used to say that the worse things got the less I panicked, which was definitely true.

One time when I was with her, we were driving to the Alps for Christmas and I started to panic about the snow on the motorway. I was 10.

The snow fell heavier and heavier and at every gantry we expected to see a sign to say the mountain route was closed. One by one each gantry posted up a mountain route closure but not ours so we pressed on.

As we drove higher up the mountain, becoming stuck in snow, having to repair out snowchain with Pa's shoelace, I began to stop panicking and, as we slept overnight in our freezing car and it gradually became covered in freezing snow, I ceased to panic at all. Indeed if you'd have told me 6 hours earlier I'd be spending the night in my Pa's ancient Volvo stuck on the mountainside, I'd have got out the car and refused to go any further.

Oddly, I use that experience to remind myself that there's no point in panicking about future events and that should an occasion arise that needs to be panicked about, I will probably panic considerably less than if I'd thought about it before hand.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that 2013 might be a bit unknown, a bit scary but I reckon it will be what I make it. I will face the fear head on, ask questions about the unknown and remember that being me is enough.

So look out 2013, I'm coming at you

DGx