This year has been a weird and rather tragic one. We had to say goodbye to beloved people like Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, George Micheal, and Prince; the US election was a literally just a dumpster on fire that somehow keeps lighting other stuff on fire too; the rise and normalization of the ‘alt-right’ (read: white supremacist) movement makes it feel like it’s 1939 again and that’s not really a time many people want to relive. There were even more cases of black men and women dying because of police brutality. The President-Elect is threatened by an extremely popular musical and satirical comedy show, keeps appointing the worst and most unqualified kind of people to his cabinet, and can’t seem to stop tweeting about the most irrelevant shit.

And that’s just some of the shit that went down during 2016. To think of all the things that happened this year makes my heart heavy.

Living in the Pacific Northwest and in a place where seasonal affective disorder is a huge issue has been hard this year. For me personally, trying to hold onto some semblance of happiness and love has been down right impossible for the past few months. It’s easier to sleep and just mindlessly get through each day because so often, the alternative is just an overwhelming sense of sorrow and self doubt.

I’m not usually one for new years resolutions – like many, the few I’ve made in the past only lasted a couple weeks. But for this next year, I want to be more intentional. I’m going to strive for happiness, to do things that actually bring joy and purpose into my life. I want to start being my own person or at least, some resemblance of the person I’ve lost in depression. I want to write more, read more, listen more. I want to travel, even if that means just a weekend road trip to a place I haven’t been to in years.

Despite everything, there’s still a part of me that has just a bit of hope left. And I’m going to cling to that tiny bit of hope for the next year. In the end, I’m glad to see the end of 2016 finally here and I hope that 2017 is at least a bit better. Happy New Year’s everyone and I hope tonight is a safe and fun one for you all.