Dear 2017,

I welcomed you into my life about two hours later than usual. I was in San Diego, enjoying the beautiful mid-60-degree night, about half-asleep because I really couldn’t adjust myself to Pacific Time that whole trip. While it was 10 o’clock where I was, you were already in Chicago, and you finally met me at what my body thought was two in the morning.

I hoped that you wouldn’t be like the year before, which probably was one of the most personally challenging years that I had ever endured. Unexpected ridicule, fear of what college was right for me, and that one week that just made me mad because people just decided to be more stupid on the road in that period of time. There was also the impending doom of that orange fiend actually becoming president.

Overall, 2017, you were actually a pretty decent year, which here in Chicago means you were good. This year I have met more people, and subsequently lost more, than I ever have in a 365-day span. The fear of picking the wrong university subsided, and I made the right choice at DePaul University here in Chicago, a city that my family and I have called home for many years, and along the way I have met and spoken to countless individuals that have come from so many parts of the country. Whether they’d be comrades, classmates, to co-authors here at DePaul’s chapter of this site, every person that I have met thus far at DePaul I admired for their intelligence and view on the world.

But 2017, you were also difficult.

Sometimes, you have to make the ultimate decision to cut someone off who has dealt nothing but stress onto you. Someone who has disrespected you, someone who has wasted your time, and someone who makes you feel inferior. Looking back, it was something that I was very scared to do, as usually, it would blow up in my face. But now I am smarter in making decisions, and now I am smarter in who I choose to invest time in.

2017, you were also difficult because some of the people I’ve befriended in high school, and still am to this day, I have drifted from. Not because of anything negative, but because everyone is moving away or actually starting to become financially independent; once high school is done, the rest of your life begins.

The most important lesson you taught me while you were here, 2017, is to not give up. When I made that painstaking decision to cut the toxic people out, that was when I realized that this is what this year was meant to be: a year to keep the faith. When Trump got inaugurated, when those toxic people hit that central nerve in my brain, when I saw Nazis descend upon Charlottesville and people I know were actually sympathizing with them. In every instance where I saw myself helpless in a sea against me, 2017, you showed me to keep on pushing against the current and fight for what’s right, even when it seemed like I was wrong.

So, 2017, as the days wind down and we part ways, I will never forget that ultimate lesson you have shown me. I’m now in a better place than I was 365 days ago, and sure enough I’ll be in an even better one 365 days from now. Your successor looks great, and though both the tides of good and evil seem to be reforming day in and day out, I will keep on building that faith and build the path to justice, not just for me but for everyone else.

Onward to 2018!

Thank you, 2017. It’s been real.

-P.E.