For me, 2016 wasn't too bad a year. It definitely wasn't the best, but nothing drastically bad happened for me to wish this year over sooner. It was a year of growth, maturation and yes, it was all through the realisation of things that maybe I wanted to stay oblivious to, but in hindsight, I'm glad I figured whatever the thing was, out. 

I think what made this year feel worse than others, at times, was my happiness. And it's not that I didn't have good people and good things surrounding me, on the contrary, in regards to those I've never felt closer to my friends and I did some pretty cool stuff this year. I think it's got to do with just being older. I've heard from several sources that the happiest years of your life are your teenage years and the ones you have after you retire. Everything just goes downhill from high school, or there abouts. And I think I'm actually starting to see that as true. 

This was my year off, out of uni. I went and travelled the world and had fun, but never have I felt more pressure or stress on a day to day basis. And I don't even have finals to study for! I was thrust into the 'real world' although I didn't find myself doing anything in my field until the very end of the year, but there was this constant worry about everything. There was more responsibility. And I think that's what slowly chipped away at my happiness. Somedays it genuinely felt like my full capacity of happiness was halved. All the things that made me immensely happy 2 years ago only made me 'happy' now. Not because of my shift in interest or whatever, I don't think I can just feel to that extent anymore, or not as often as I did anyway. And that both upsets and disappoints me. 

My group and I, well we started saying this more and more this year and at first, I welcomed the idea, then I tried to deny it as best I could, but now I think I'm finally starting to really accept it. We're adults now. We're no longer teenagers, no longer 'young adults' still maturing, we're like full blown adults. We've finished/ we're finishing uni, we're thinking of moving out and being more independent, we've been working meaningless jobs for many years and we're now starting to trade those in for 'real jobs'. We're adults.

I forgot where this was going, haha.

In summary...

Cons:

• feeling lost 80% of the time without guidance
• not getting into med, for some reason it hurt more this year than previous
• working meaningless jobs, just to make money. something I regret in hindsight. but money was good lol 
• not making the most of my time off to do something good/meaningful 
• watching my friends go through hurt and heart ache
• dad sick