New Year’s Eve is considered a time to reflect on the past year. Some use it as a chance to create goals that they can accomplish, but usually stop trying to achieve after a month or two. Others use it as a chance to completely reinvent themselves.

But this is not always the case.

In most recent years, people, myself included, celebrated the New Year as a chance to literally escape the past –to leave the disastrous relationships, petty arguments, and awful memories behind.

Not every year has a glittering, amazing ending to it. Some end in heartbreak, others in the death of a friend or loved one.

Especially when these things happen, it is easy to want to carry it with you. Doubting your progression without that someone by your side. Thinking about them constantly, just from the little things you notice day to day. It’s easy to sit around and think about what life would be like if you were still with that someone.

At the end of each year, I sit down and reflect. I think about every major event that happened. Most are average, but some are outstandingly beautiful or heart-wrenchingly horrid. Throughout my pondering and reflecting, I laugh and smile, or cry and wonder why.

Ultimately, at the end of the reflection, I look at myself in the mirror and close my eyes. I think back to what I looked like in my childhood, pigtails and toothless smiles. I think back to what I looked like as I grew older, watching my physical appearance morph and change to who I have become today. And then I open my eyes. I tell myself that I would not be here without these moments, both awful and amazing.

The most important thing about this act of reflection is to resist the urge to burden yourself. It’s not healthy, it’s not what the person would want you to do –it’s not worth the anger, sadness, anguish. Don’t forget the events that have happened, for they have helped shape who you have become, but you don’t need to carry the weight of that feeling. It probably isn’t your fault, and no matter how hard you try and convince yourself that it is, I promise you –it isn’t.

With years like this, the best thing to do is to allow those memories to turn to grey and leave the feelings, the thoughts, the dark piece of yourself, behind.

The whole point of the New Year being “new” is pushing the retry button on your life and to move on steadily.

Whatever happened in the past year, good or bad, it made you a stronger, better person. You cannot change anything that has happened already.

So, if you decide to leave a piece of yourself behind in 20-whatever, remember that the only step you can take from here is forward.