How was your 2017?

[wandshogun09]

2017 was really a nothing year for me. Nothing amazing happened but nothing that bad either. Which is fine by me because 2016 was pretty shit. I think a relatively quiet year was in order. Especially because I know 2018 is definitely going to be a lot more hectic. 

We just found out we're having another baby, due early July. Over the moon but at the same time terrified at the thought of doubling the mayhem with 2 kids about the place! My daughter starts school this year which is crazy to me how quick the time has gone. And my little sister is getting married in August. Busy times ahead. 

Sorry to hear some of you are having a rough time. There's some genuinely good people on here and it really is shit to hear some of you have had a crap year. Hope things pick up for you all in 2018. 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

On the good side; cut my antidepression meds in half, took 3 holidays abroad (including getting to tick Jamaica and Italy off my bucket list) and spent ages with my favourite human and our stupid dog. 

 

The bad; my uncle hung himself in summer, my gran (his mum) died in November and my grandad has twice tried to kill himself in response. Also I found out I carry the BRCA2 gene so I'm at an increased risk of cancer. 

[Grecian]

Same old, same old...

Clocked up 10 years in the same job, everyone I care about is still alive and healthy, went to Wembley (Exeter lost), learned to drive, finished the first year of my MA with some decent marks. Nothing amazing, nothing horrific. Just a year.

[King Pitcos]

A mixed bag.

Went to WrestleMania, and the Orlando theme parks, on my own so not as enjoyable as it could've been. But I'd have been waiting forever for my mates to go. 

It's ending on a good note, though, I've just discovered BBC Pidgin: https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-41171196

[Frankie Crisp]

On 29/12/2017 at 2:15 PM, wandshogun09 said:

We just found out we're having another baby, due early July. Over the moon but at the same time terrified at the thought of doubling the mayhem with 2 kids about the place!

 

Congrats, Wand. Always brilliant to see this kind of news on here.

[eugenespeed]

Mixed year for me. I went to Hannover in Germany to see Fury in the Slaughterhouse, which was probably the highlight of the year. 

Came close to dying in October though. If it wasn't for the doctor coming to the my flat, seeing the state I was in and calling for an ambulance, I'm not actually sure I'd be sitting here typing this now. My bloods were all to hell and I was hallucinating, so I guess I left 2017 with a total appreciation for the National Health Service. 

[BomberPat]

Pretty miserable, in a lot of ways. My mental health took a pretty significant downturn for the first time in many years, so a lot of the year was spent struggling against that, and that's coloured most of my feelings toward the year as a whole. My dog passed away suddenly at the start of the year, only a couple of days after I'd been telling someone how she'd finally got healthy enough that I wasn't constantly worrying about her - she was a rescue dog, with a litany of health problems, and my life was largely structured around her, to an extent I hadn't really realised until after she was gone, and I think having that routine, and having her there and more or less completely reliant on me and devoted to me gave me a coping mechanism I hadn't realised was there. Coupled with the parents moving away, which 99% of the time isn't really an issue, but created some stressful situations while helping them move, and during some of the worse times health-wise it kind of sucked not having that support network there.

The final shitty nail in the coffin was, after a week away for Christmas spent with family (hanging out with my little niece for the first time in nearly three years, seeing the other nieces and nephews, and having myself, two of my brothers and my parents in the same place at Christmas for the first time in 18 years) and one torturous day travelling back from Robin Hood Airport to Jersey via cancellations, delays, and diversions to Southampton, I went out on New Year's Eve, first time seeing mates since I got back, only to be told that a good friend - who I had expected to see in that pub, that day - had killed himself the Friday before. That's fucked me up, and I'm still struggling to come to terms with it, but as I found out (just) in 2017, I'm going to chalk that up to 2017's shittiness and figure that 2018's going to have to be an absolute bastard of a year to do worse than that.

 

So that this isn't an entirely miserable post ending on a massive downer, I will say that the aforementioned Christmas week was lovely, and that got to a load of wrestling shows over the year, had fantastic times at all of them, and have made some great friends, including meeting some from this parish, in the process, so I have that to look back fondly on. I also had a ridiculously short notice trip to the Netherlands on ITV's buck, signed a proper contract in the job I'd been temping at previously, did some fairly preposterous modelling for a really cool local folklore art project, and dabbled in a few other creative endeavours, so it's not been all dreadful.