New Year's Eve

I really hope that this New Year is better than the last. I think most people hope that, but really, this past year stank. Just before the beginning of this year, I got broken up with by the man I thought I'd marry, and saw everything that I'd invested my life in pulled from under my feet. Shortly afterward, my sister got engaged, which was obviously wonderful, but both rubbed it in and was hard to come to terms with in terms of basically losing a sister (I know, I know, I haven't lost her, but things won't be the same any more). My faith, which was the one stable thing in my life, if not disappeared then radically changed, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia and told that I very likely have ADD, and scraped through my first year of uni while grappling with depression and stress-related illness. On top of this, in spite of genuinely trying to be a nice, and more importantly a good person, I somehow made enemies of people around me who (at Christian Union and Church, ironically) spread rumours about my mental health, self-harming habits, relationship with my ex-boyfriend and vairous other painful topics, which, in a new environment where I was depsperately trying to make friends, made life very hard.

I guess this was a pretty standard first year of uni really, but frankly I'm just glad that I've made it through alive. I'm not really grappling with depression and more and the illness has let up, although goodness know's what'll happen when term starts, considering that this coming term is suppposed to be the most stressful of our uni career. All I can do is pray in sheer desperation that God have mercy and that I'm not stretched so hard I snap.

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I was chatting to a friend about marriage yesterday. There's been an influx in the past year in the amount of people I know who're engaged, and he's one of them (the first, to give him credit) but the only one who isn't a Christian. We agreed that part of the motive for Christian young people getting married early is because they want to have sex, whereas that's hardly ever a factor for non-Christians so non-Christians usually wait longer. He pointed out that his motives in marriage are by that measure perhaps purer than many Christians. He can have sex any time he wants, with pretty much whoever he wants if he so desires, so the commitment is greater: a) to only have sex with this one partner for the rest of his life, and b) to spend the rest of his life with this one partner, although he's already reaping all the benefits of a sexual relationship without commiting. Much as I think there's another side to the coin, he does make a good point.

ANYHOW, enough with the sex.