2015 was a mixed bag in our house. We're very blessed not to have anything we couldn't handle sent our way this year. We had ups and downs like everyone else and we are heading into 2016 with grateful hearts.
I turned 40 this year. For years I thought I'd spend my 40th birthday under my duvet, hyperventilating into a brown paper bag in the moments between wailing and crying over my lost youth.
But then I thought back on the past couple of years, on the people who we lost. I remembered friends who bravely fought cancer and lost the battle, people who we lost to the road, to suicide. And instead of hiding in the house, I threw myself a big party with all my friends and family and together we celebrated 40 years of being reasonably fabulous.
There were a few changes in my life this year. I began an English degree so as to pursue a dream of eventually moving into a career in education. It was a move which was quite daunting. I left behind a full-time regular wage to dive head first into full-time education with four kids in tow.
Although I was ready to take on the life of a student, I wasn't too sure that my kids were ready to fully embrace the student lifestyle, with the baked beans-based food or Pot Noodles for every meal and the days spent hanging around the union drinking pints for a pound.
It has been tough. It has been hard, gruelling work. It has been tough juggling life, education, family and work. I found myself writing essays on buses, reading Macbeth in the canteen at lunch hour, working late into the night when the kids have gone to bed and spending all my weekends in the library as opposed to a drinking emporium.
I've had to rejig my entire life, going back to freelance reporting and spending my days in the university and nights on rainy streets covering bomb scares. It's been interesting. Some day I'll look back on these days and laugh, as well as wondering how on Earth I managed to keep it all together.
But I'm heading into this new year with a firm focus on what I want to do, where I want to go. I'm surer of myself than I ever have been and have pushed myself way beyond my limits. And I'm going to keep on truckin' until I get where I'm supposed to be.
It has been a tough year for some. I know some people who are facing financial difficulty as the year turns. People are worrying over losing their homes, being able to feed their kids and they can't look further into the future than tomorrow.
There are very few jobs around, businesses are going to the wall at an astronomical rate and there doesn't seem to be much hope around for any change any time soon. My new year's wish for them is they know that rock bottom is the perfect place from which to build good solid foundations for the future and they find peace and hope and a will to get back up and try again.
I know some people are facing serious health issues heading into the new year. I hope they find the strength to keep going, to keep fighting and know that those around them are thinking on them and praying for them constantly.
2015 has been an awful year with regards to terror. So much blood the world over has been spilled needlessly as we have become sucked into the brutal, mindless violence at the hands of Isis and the world's governments have responded by visiting terror on the innocents of foreign lands in retaliation.
People may not think it makes a difference, but if we all take to the streets to protest about the bombing of innocents in Syria, or to support and welcome those refugees joining our communities from war torn areas or to protest against those who would turn them away the roar of condemnation will be too loud to ignore.
We are all outraged by the hell these people have had to endure and if we all gave just £1 to the various charities that help those families fleeing, if we spread the love, we can in some small way counteract the horrible cruelty that is going on in the world at the moment.
I've seen the solid beginnings of seismic changes in our culture. There is so much horror and heartbreak that we are almost desensitised. However, ordinary people are trying to make a small change. From the bus driver who bought the homeless man a coat to the group of community leaders who drove all the way from Ireland to Calais with vans packed with supplies and blankets for refugees, to fancy restaurants putting on Christmas dinner for the needy, it's all doing good. It's all good.
Why not make this the year we stand up for those who cannot stand alone, the year we give a voice to those who have none, reach out our hand to those who need it? Why not make this the year we do everything in our power to help those who need it; the year we all do little things to make the world a better place; the year we do good? Let's make 2016 magic.
Happy New Year to all from the O'Neillios.
