Dear 2016,

Listen, We all know that we’ve had our ups and downs. Most relationships have frequent fights and conflicts, but this went way too far. The year started out wonderful and it just went down hill from there.

It all started on May 28. This day, you took away our favorite gorilla. When a little boy climbed into Harambe’s cage, you shot him. You could have just stunned him, 2016. Why did you take our gorilla? This was the first thing that really started major problems with us. On June 10, you took a young singer from us. Christina Grimme was shot after one of her concerts in Orlando, Florida. She was a wonderfully talented and passionate woman. She aspired to achieve greatness…and she did. Two days later, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history happened at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. 2016, from that, you took 49 people from us and injured 53. How could you do this? But…you kept making poor decisions. You couldn’t stop there. On August 16, you gave California a massive wildfire and took 15,000 acres of land with you. The next day, you decided that it would be nice to give a massive flood to Louisiana, causing 14 deaths and damaging over 4,000 homes. On September 17, you handed Chelsea, New York a terror bomb, causing 29 people to be injured. On October 24, in Pakistan, you supplied us with a suicide bomber at a police training academy, responsible for the deaths of 61 innocent people and injuring 117 people. On November 8, Donald Trump was elected president. Lots of people would think this is a positive…but here’s why it isn’t. This election brought out the worst in people, no matter what side of the political spectrum they are on. Because of this election, it caused many hate crimes and discrimination.

Not only did you cause all of that…but you took the lives of some of our favorite people. This list contains, but is not limited to, the following people.

David Bowie

Rene Angelil

Alan Rickman

Abe Vigoda

Harper Lee

Frank Sinatra Jr.

Prince

Muhammad Ali

Christina Grimme (as I mentioned earlier)

Gene Wilder

Alan Thicke

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Ricky Harris

George S. Irving

Carrie Fisher

Debbie Reynolds

This list is only some of the people you took from us…but you took some of our favorites. Alan Rickman was hard for us, but once you took Prince, Carrie Fisher, Christina Grimme, and tons of our other favorite household names…we were devastated. You just kept taking away from us without warning, and we had enough.

I would like to take this time to talk about the good things you did for us. On February 28, you finally gave Leonardo DiCaprio his well-deserved Oscar. Thank you for that. On April 23, you blessed us with Beyonce’s Lemonade album. On June 7, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child premiers in London. We love our Harry Potter, so thank you for bringing us more of that. On June 12, you gave our favorite new Broadway Musical, Hamilton, 11 Tony Awards. That was a huge leap for the theatre community and we are thankful for that. On July 6, you blessed our smartphones with “Pokémon Go!”

Though many wonderful things happened, the bad things are worse than the good. 2016, my New Year’s Resolutions are like a metaphor for our relationship…they don’t work out. I think that it is time that we move on and never EVER talk about you again.

Sincerely,

Everyone.