Things I Learned in 2012

So here it is, the last day of 2012. This year has been the best of my life, but also probably the hardest.  The thing about having a hard time though, is that it tends to teach you things. These are some of the things I learned in 2012:

• If you didn’t have a fantastic relationship with your family before you had a child, the baby will not magically improve anything at all. It might even make things worse.
• We are all stronger than we give ourselves credit for. Having been through this year, I know there is not much I cannot cope with now.
• In your hour of need, help can come from the most unlikely direction. People I had not seen for years (around 20 in some cases) have given me things, offered advice and support, turned up at my door with a smile and a shoulder to cry on and generally overwhelmed me with how amazingly supportive and caring people can be.
• Everything sounds a hundred times louder when your baby is asleep. Especially if said baby has a strained relationship with nap time.
• You can stay single indefinitely, and you won’t be hurt and humiliated like you were before; but you also won’t feel as happy and cared for as you never did before.
• It is around a hundred times easier to make conversation with new people if you have a beautiful baby on your lap. 
• If it hurts, it's not love. Walk away.
• Dignified silence trumps arguing your point every single time. In the end the people who matter will find out the truth; nobody else matters.
• Everyone has an opinion on what you should be doing, and none of them matter.
• Most things happen at an inconvenient time.
• Hospital food is not so bad, but it does make you crave fresh, crunchy vegetables
• Breastfeeding in public is really not such a big deal.
• A lot of people do lack the common decency taken to step out of the way of a woman with a push chair, or to hold a door open for her. This one really surprised me, since I was brought up to always hold the door for the person behind me.
• Actually - and this is a big shocker - I can be a bit of a clean/tidy freak and get rather thingy when my living space is dirty or messy.
• Life is as easy or as hard as you want to make it. You can be faced with a million difficult things, but if you adjust your attitude slightly, you can still drag life towards a nice sunny walk in the park.

Happy New Year, everyone. If my 2013 is half as awesome as this year and half as shitty, I'll be happy. I hope yours brings you whatever it is you want/need.

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