January is a month when many of us set goals or resolutions - and failed to keep them. A new year always got me worrying about where I was heading. At other times I found myself looking back with a sense of regret. Last year I decided that it was time to start living in the moment, I had to let go of the past and hold more faith in the future. That was my new year's resolution.
So how did 2008 go? I was dropped from the starting England team for the first time since 1999. I had surgery on my right shoulder during the summer, then played just three games before dislocating my left kneecap. Three more visits to the surgeon's table brings me to where I am now. I've had a hell of a time - and I mean that in the most positive way! Things don't always go to plan, no matter how hard you try. I appreciate now that there are things I can control and things I cannot. When, on that glorious Sydney day in 2003 we won the World Cup, I felt hollow. The World Cup was something that I had dreamt of ever since I was 9, but there it was, achieved, and my life hadn't changed. We had climbed to the very peak of a mountain but I already had the feeling then that the only way ahead was down the other side.
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