We find ourselves hurdling ever faster towards the long awaited, and dare I say, epic conclusion of the year two-thousand and sixteen (2016). I feel compelled to hurriedly offer a few thoughts of reflection on the past year, and looking to the future, as we make our way to the inaugural celebration of 2017.

One word in particular comes to mind when I sit down and think about everything that has happened this year: exhaustion. Exhausted. Exhausting. And so on… you get the point. It was going to be a year of change, that much I knew back on January first. Heck, I even knew that back in 2012, as I set my sights for a 2016 graduation date from college. But I did not envision just how brutal and rough and miserable some of that change was going to be. At times it has felt like diving into an icy cold river only to have my lungs freeze up, while simultaneously being carried and battered by the jagged rapids.

There are many ways the world has changed this year: Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Prince, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Antonin Scalia, David Cameron, Theresa May, Donald Trump. Globalization took some hefty blows, American democracy and civility has taken some hefty blows, etc. Even I have changed. Fundamentally. What started as the mixture of stress and entertainment watching the Republican primaries turned into an inner battle for a foundational truth of myself. I have grown more distant and now even outright cold (at times) towards the social justice movement of late. I still support its causes no less ardently than I did a year and a half ago. But I support far fewer people in it. My sympathy for those who share snarky and demeaning memes of social media has dwindled to the point of disappearing. My patience for those who demand respect without giving it equally as poignantly has long since been sapped. And it has become a source of frustration to me to sit here helplessly and watch the social justice movement alienate its opponents even further through a self-destructive glee of self-righteousness. This frustration, along with the stress induced by the prospects of an unsuccessful, nearly 8 month long job hunt, the question is raised: how much more can we possibly take? That’s why people are looking to 2017 to be a year of change and hope.

But I have to be honest with you. I went into 2016 with rose-colored, optimistic lenses. 2016 was the year of change: the year Donald Trump would go away, the year that progressivism could finally gain some momentum politically, the year that the future would look brighter than ever before. Those lenses don’t exist this year. I leave 2016 behind knowing wearily that 2017 will be hard. The news headlines that will pour out from the Trump Administration on an almost certain daily basis will be stress-inducing and equally exhausting. More celebrities will die. That job hunt may or may not wrap up quickly. The days will remain long and dark and cold for many months before they let up. And yet… there is hope.

It is not a pretty hope. It is not necessarily a friendly hope. I may not even want it around. No, it is a more robust kind of hope. There is hope to be found in endurance. It is not easy to find, and it must be earned to enjoy, but even as we draw this year to a close I cannot help but think of the opportunities that come with a new year. New goals, new dreams. And even in the face of a dark and murky world, the hope that comes from the ability to draw upon your own strength, to reaffirm your own resolve offers a kind of glimmering light at the edge of all the shadows. Anyone who has committed to a New Year’s resolution understands this kind of hope: to affect real change is much harder than you initially think, and to commit to it long-term requires a kind of courage that you simply did not have to exude the year before.

Here’s to a year of endurance, of gritty determination, of forging our own hope.

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!

Adieu 2016.                                                                     And good riddance.

Joe