As this year comes to an end, I have constantly noticed how many people are so ready for it to do just that, end. While at first, I couldn’t have agreed more, I have to stop myself and wonder if 2016 has really left me that anxious for the new year. Have I been left with PTSD of this past year and a phobia of the year to come?
I could almost say that 2016 has been one of the worst years of my life. Why? I finally mended my broken heart back together from the year before, only to have it ripped out again; I was so stressed and depressed internally that it broke me physically, mentally, and emotionally throwing me into a world of constantly being sick and sad; I lost many friends and gained very few; and was only happy dreaming of the day I would move out of my hometown.
When I think of 2016 as a whole, I really only think of how hard it was and how much I struggled with it, but when I sit back and think of the 365 days that 2016 shared with me, I remember just how many good times I had. I had a very successful year at the Indiana State Science Fair (yes, that was one of my favorite memories and will always be); I graduated from high school (GOD BLESS); the few friends I did make are lifelong ones; and I am now attending my dream college and couldn’t be happier. All in all, I learned that you have a choice to focus on the bad or walk away from it. It took me a while, but I finally can do that. I could hold an infinite grudge against my last year of childhood, but it wouldn’t do any good and at the end of the day, it made me stronger. While I could say I do have a phobia from this year, I am choosing not to. I have not been damaged by this past year but rather, I have been made stronger.
Throughout my many nights at sitting in my favorite coffee shop in my hometown, I was able to think about a lot and process the exhausting days. One of my favorite poems that I had written everywhere helped me get through the craziness, and I hope you know it’s okay to be weak and to have bad days, weeks, and an overall crappy year. It’s okay to have regrets and it is most certainly okay to be over 2016, but it is not okay to hold it over your head once the ball drops.
Some nights you will feel like there are a thousand galaxies exploding in every inch of you, and you are burning too bright to ever be looked at directly. Some nights you will feel impossibly small, like your whole body could slip through the spaces between atoms and never reappear in the world again. Some nights you will feel like a paper doll, carefully crafted and easily blown away, fragile, too delicate to ever be touched. Some nights you will feel like each cell in your body is made of the strength that holds the planet together, And that is okay because you are made of stardust and miniscule atoms and breakable bones, and the building blocks of the universe, and you are too alive to never feel anything more than human.
-Bene1224from powerpoetry.org
2016 was just a rough year for most people and for our nation as a whole. If you have had a rough year (and let’s face it, who hasn’t), my heart goes out to you. As much as I wish I could change it for you, I ultimately can’t. My challenge for you isn’t to make 2017 the best year of your life, because that is hard and setting the bar awfully high, but let’s make it a fresh start. Take that pain, heartbreak, and brokenness into 2017, and turn it into a light. Turn it into a light that can shine through the darkness of the past. Allow yourself to learn from it all and be brave. Focusing on the past will consume you and will only darken your heart further. I easily could’ve given up on 2016, but I didn’t and I survived. Choose happiness and laughter because those are the moments that heal a broken soul; choose yourself because your health and happiness is important, and you are worth too much to not feel that every day of your life; and choose God, because He is the only one who can truly get us through the lows of life, and despite everything you try to do to control it, He is the one who runs the show.