We were all waiting for it. The moment when the clock strikes Twelve. We were waiting to fully say goodbye to a year and the memories it hold, the same moment when we get the chance to be reborn and feel that we have fresh start, a clean slate, a new page to write onto. It was a moment of celebration, goodbyes, and of hope rising rolled into one.

I drowned all the excitement when I put on Brooke Fraser's New Year's Eve. "It's been a loud year and I really like to be alone," it said. And it has been. I felt like the past year, I was swayed from one direction to the other until I was in the middle of a whirlwind, stayed there until I was pulled out by someone whose gravity I didn't quite understand, yet somehow felt familiar and safe. Someone who somehow brought back home to me in the most surprising way.

Maybe it was just a passing force, but I needed that. God knows I did. It was a turn of events, an end to a somehow confused streak, a point where my life altered and made me fall in love with myself again.

I met with myself every morning, looking at my reflection who stared right back at me, telling to her I'm grateful for life. I started to write everyday again, picked up my camera with a new zeal, looked at things differently, and felt everything was blissful. I said to myself, I could go anytime, cos all I ever wanted is all that I have, right there, right at that exact moment in time. What was I thinking, wanting things that I don't really need nor want?

I sketched my future and drew squiggles and crooked lines. I was never good in drawing, but it was okay. It's me and I accepted that. I accepted all that I am not and all that I can't do, laughed at myself for even trying to overachieve, to be someone who's expected of me. I am not that, not all that, cos I am me, and I simply cannot be all that. I accepted. I let go.

The new year has been welcomed, and I started it with travel. New will be added to the old -- stories, people, laughter, celebrations, adventures, surprises, lessons, and challenges. Changes are coming, steps one after the other, arms ready, spread wide open, a smile to an unknown future, my heart set on the Lover who has freed my spirit, my soul, my body to the matchless glory of life that this is. Magic and kindness, love, forgiveness, peace signs and silly things. I told myself to enjoy life, breathe it in, and expect from it.

I told myself to give to the girl who was staring back at me in the mirror, to give the love I owe her, to take care of her, to allow her to flow when she's full, to open her heart once more. Falling in love with her isn't easy, but I'll work on it everyday. Because she's the only one who's ever gonna be who she is. There will be no one like her. She's worth it.