So, this is my last Odyessy article to be posted before 2016 officially ends. It worries me to even think about it — the end of 2016. It feels much too dangerous to even spare it a thought, to even consider the fact that this turbulent year of hell will actually end. By acknowledging the end, we basically ask for something worse to happen. It's like an old police chief getting gunned down the day before he retires. Or maybe like a plane full of people surviving terrible lightning storms and losing engines and a wing but then somehow blowing up the minute the wheels touch down on the tarmac. I honestly wouldn't put it past 2016 to be a complete tease in the worst possible way, by allowing us to see the light at the end of the tunnel right before the tracks cut off and we plunge to our deaths.

I'm being dramatic, as I am wont to do, but despite knowing that every day comes and goes and that life always continues on, I truly worry about inevitably jinxing this year and making it somehow longer (which, honestly, I would rather just die now if that's the case). Like, hasn't it gone on long enough already? Haven't we, as a people, been through enough?

Apparently not, considering that — despite having literally less than a week of this rancid garbage can of a year — it has still managed to literally kill both George Michael and Carrie Fisher, and that was just in the last couple of days! (as of writing this article, at least. As per when you're reading this, I have no clue what horrors have occurred.)

I don't really know what this article is supposed to be, to be honest. It's too late to redeem 2016, clearly, as this year has already taken it's unwarranted aggression out on us in ways we couldn't have anticipated and probably didn't entirely deserve. It's probably even too late to wish for a better 2017, as we're bound to feel the effects of this veritable shitstorm for the next thousand years.

Maybe I'm writing this as more of a sendoff than anything else. A little way to look back on an objectively terrible year and try to put as much of the flaming wreckage behind me as possible. Because one thing that 2016 didn't manage to do — despite all efforts — is kill my spirit (Although, you kind of have to have one in the first place if it's going to be killed, so maybe that's how I survived it?).

I don't know how 2017 is going to be. I have no reason to believe it'll be better, but somehow I am still hoping it will be. If this year taught me anything it's that life is going to sucker-punch you any chance it can get, especially in places you wouldn't expect and at moments you cannot anticipate. You don't have to take it lying down, though, even though it's a lot easier to just kind of lie down and never get up. You can wallow, you can lick your wounds, you can take time to feel bad for yourself and others and the crushing, oppressive weight that threatens to crush you like an anvil in a Road Runner cartoon.

But you can also fight back, if you want to. You can kick back all you want and scream until your chest aches and set up your own convoluted booby traps to get what you want even if they always seem to fail. This extended metaphor is devolving now, but I hope it at least kind of made sense to you. I guess what I want is to send 2016 off with a giant kick to the groin or a punch in the throat and storm into 2017 ready for battle. If this next year is coming for blood, you better damn well at least put up a fight.