Christmas Eve is ambient lighting and colored lights: an empty loft in a hushed and peaceful city at any other time teeming with the sounds of buses and trains, sirens and drunken wails.

This was a year of challenge and opportunity. A year of travel and learning. As it goes, everything changed then changed again.

I don’t have much use for New Year’s resolutions. If something needs fixing or an opportunity lies in sight, best to get to it. That said, I started the year with a list of outstanding aspirations: change jobs, move house and neighborhood, and submit the paperwork for a visa renewal. Incredibly, all of these challenges were sorted by the beginning of Summer.

The year began in Las Vegas: a trip wrought with the confusion and disruption of maintaining a role at one employer whilst negotiating the next – amidst a great deal of alcohol and emotion. The months followed in limbo, an object in motion suddenly aimless and still as I awaited for government approval to stay in the country. Held within borders without a passport, every new decision a massive gamble. Plan to leave and plan to stay.

Then, suddenly — release! into the current. A grant to say yes. Within days an opportunity to move handed to me, to an incredible residence in a borough I begrudgingly left three years before. A summer of events, of friends, of discovery. The marriages of two beautiful couples, an invitation to witness that I am very grateful for.

And — travel, a ticket to ride! Bath to Brighton, Somerset to Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire and Rye. Berlin, Amsterdam, Bologna, New York, Washington DC and Belfast. Vienna.

A good year, an exciting year, but not without turmoil.

The last eight years of my life have seen continuous, tidal change. Jobs, homes, cities, countries. Though a few years stand back as unremarkable, change is the constant. I long for stability but shy from it, towards the gleam of possibility. Often, this leads to great things. However, if not balanced, these wax wings are bound to burn in the approaching sun.

What of next year? I intend to stay in the same job, the same flat and the same city. A year of potential firm footing? I am not naive enough to believe these things are not prone to upheaval. If, however, I keep to the ground a bit perhaps smaller, more interesting treasures are to be found.