So, it looks like this year is done. 2016 has somehow gotten a reputation for being absolutely terrible. But at what point did we all just sort of simultaneously decide that it was the worst year ever? I certainly don’t remember making that decision. I thought it was an excellent year, actually. I recognize the reasons we thought it was terrible: continuing chaos in the Middle East, a continuing refugee crisis, continuing terrorist attacks, continuing world hunger and poverty, continuing threats to our environment (both natural and man-made). There was an over abundance of deaths of famous and important people (or so I have been told), and a pretty ridiculous American Presidential Election came to an unsatisfying end. I recognize that terrible things happened. I recognize that in certain categories, 2016 was terrible. But I also recognize the amazing things that happened. With most tragedies, quality art blossomed out of them. We had a victory (or at least the strong beginnings of one) at Standing Rock. We got another Star Wars movie, and another Harry Potter movie (opinions on quality notwithstanding). We got a freaking Harry Potter script for a freaking sequel play. New music was released and new movies came out and Kickstarters got all their funding and people who didn’t have jobs before got jobs and people bought houses and cars and got married and had kids. No less than nine National Monuments were designated in the US, perfect for the centennial year of the National Park Service. Michelle Obama gave several absolutely amazing speeches, that are still important and amazing despite Hillary Clinton’s loss. I graduated high school. I went to four more states. (I now have only five more to go!) I drove through Columbus, OH at night (because I made a wrong turn on the freeway, but cool nonetheless). I finally went to Hershey Park. I marathoned all eight Harry Potter movies. I started college at my dream school. I sang BYU’s fight song, a lot. I voted. I made friends that I will never forget, nor want to. I became secure in my own religious understanding. I bought a flannel and got a bank account. I have my very own copies of each of my favorite classic books. Guys, this year was great. Yes, there was tragedy. There always is. Remember a couple years ago when the Ferguson riots graced the cover of TIME magazine, and then last year you couldn’t tell the difference between the Baltimore riots and 1968? Remember four years ago, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, or a decade before, the massacre (as Wikipedia so succinctly puts it) at Columbine High? Remember Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, the Cold War, the JFK assassination, when we dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, the Great Depression, the Lincoln assassination, the Civil War? Tragedy has always existed. I do not say this to lessen the tragedies of this year. I do not say this to ignore the tragedies of 2016 or to make them insignificant. And I am, just like you, excited and hopeful for what 2017 has to hold, hoping it will be another step in the right direction, and a little bit better, both personally and universally. But I am excited and hopeful every year, as that is the point of all the glitter and fizz we always throw on December 31st. That is the whole point of celebrating the New Year, of New Year’s Resolutions and still having school off. To have hope. I hope you have hope. But I hope that this hope is not contingent on this being the end of 2016 specifically. I hope that this hope does not exist because you think that 2016 was the worst year yet. It was not the worst year yet. Of course, maybe it was. I will not take the privilege of naming the horror of your own personal year away from you. But I will try to lessen the pessimism, to point out that in a lot of ways a year is what you make it. It is true that some really great people died and some really crappy people were placed in positions of power, but the opposite is also true. And maybe I am arguing a point that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, or maybe the point makes sense and my evidence is literal crap, but I think it’s valid. I think you can take something from it. I think you can take something from anything, no matter the level of crap within. I think maybe that’s the point I’ve been trying to make all along.
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I'm Audrey, a college student and existential rambler.
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