I spent New Year’s Eve 1979 alone, by choice.

I had been invited to a couple of parties, but I decided that rather than go to a party with someone I really wasn’t interested in romantically, I should stay home.

It was a good choice. It was a time for me to think about what I wanted in life.

I was a single woman with a good job. I lived on my own and for the first time in my adult life I wasn’t in a relationship.

By the time I was counting down to midnight, I had made a few decisions.

The first one was that I would never spend New Year’s Eve alone again. Even if I was still single I would spend it with friends or family.

The next revelation was even more significant. I admitted that I wanted to fall in love and share my life with someone. I wanted to have a family. But, I also realized that if I didn’t find the right person, if that person didn’t come into my life, then I was happy on my own. I could handle being on my own. Up until that point in my life I’d avoided being alone.

As I began 1980, I felt different.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to those who are more self-aware, or mature, than I was at that point in my life, that at the end of March that year I met the man I would marry. It was the right time. And 32 years and four children later, I can honestly say it was the right choice.

I don’t really make a lot of resolutions on New Year’s Eve, and most of the ones I’ve made I’ve broken a few weeks or months later. But, I do think it is a wonderful opportunity to reflect, a time to stop and re-evaluate your goals, to be grateful for what is good in your life and maybe identify something that you need to eliminate. I am spending New Year’s Eve with a small group of friends and the man, who is really lucky I spent New Year’s Eve alone 34 years ago.

Jo-Ann Roberts is an award-winning, veteran journalist who is host of CBC Radio’s All Points West, 3-6 pm weekday afternoons, 90.5 fm. Married to Ken Kelly, they have four children.