Before You Write Off 2016, What About Tomorrow?

I am trying to be sympathetic to all of you who are completely done with 2016 and all of the bad things you seem to recall, but I've got two days left in this blessed year before 2017 comes in fresh and new and pretends to be better just because it's new.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sad about Prince Roger Nelson , Muhammad Ali and so many others leaving us during the same calendar year, yet I'm hard pressed to beg for a better 2017 when death keeps reminding me to be thankful for today, because tomorrow isn't promised to any of us.

I'm not attempting to make light of a tumultuous year. I clearly realize that the spirits that seemed to make 2016 feel like 20666 came to visit me and you too, not just Hillary Clinton and celebrities. Many of us lost loved ones and/or had relationships tested to the core. Either we experienced true death and dying, or we lived the death and dying of love and friendships that we thought would last forever.

In hindsight, getting Donald Trump mostly felt like piling on. Trump's victory seems like a death of something noble; of an image that WE believed of ourselves right up to the moment of Hillary's defeat. Not only was it difficult accepting the notion of a president Trump, but Hillary's bitter inability to lose with dignity made the entire scene that much worse. In one embarrassing night, WE were announcing to the world that we are lazy voters, semi-crazy voters and also poor losers all at the same time. We did that towards Obama too, but I just assumed that was because of his skin color, not because we don't know how to politically lose anymore.

WE did experience more nasty episodes with gun violence in 2016, which is something I'm admittedly forcing myself to include because I know WE've learned- as a coping mechanism- how to fully forget about domestic terror incidents as quickly as our minds will allow.  Since we forget our own terroristic ways, police across the nation are currently learning the end of year data of officers killed on duty as well as a sharp rise (6 to 21) of those directly targeted for violence. I have to assume that this information is either a message begging those who assassinate cops to stop, or it's an effort to make cops more aware of the level of angst against them.


Either way, is it totally bad that cops have been exposed to the extremity of our collective societal concern about imbalanced policing or policing for profit efforts that disproportionately impact minorities across the land? Is it even horrible that cops are being filmed and confronted for the bad behaviors of the relative few of their brethren? I don't condone the assassination of cops, but I hear the voice of anger that it saying "enough", and so do cops. Isn't it better that we begin the movement towards nationwide mandated chest camera usage and community policing as a standard, not an exception? Personally, I will mark 2016 as the turning point in that crucial conversation?

If that's too heavy a point to consider, what about Pokemon-Go (bad choice?)?  Or how about those Cubs? In 2016 the Chicago Cubs broke a long-standing curse by beating the Cleveland Indians, another team that expelled a curse themselves by simply making it to the World Series.  We could feel sad for the city of Cleveland and the Indians, if not for the exploits of those Cleveland Cavaliers?  Was that an incredible series and an improbable outcome or what?

I'm trying to be a bit humble, but we can't forget about Peyton Manning and my Denver Broncos. While Broncos haters are quick to remind me of our present putrid performance on the field, they seem to forget that this is still 2016, and there will never be another Superbowl Champion crowned in this calendar year. Well, actually, we never allow anyone to forget about the Broncos being a huge part of the 2016 story, even if that's part of the stuff they'd like to forget.

If you aren't a Broncos fan and don't like successful swan song stories of HOF quarterbacks, what about the Rio Olympics? They turned out to be amazing despite the concerns going in and despite the Ryan Lochte nonsense on the way out.

Even if you want to use the seriously draining impact of the presidential election process as a reason for our sucky '16, I would counter you with the fact that Americans are more aware of their personal impact on an election than they ever were before.  We all understand the electoral college, and some of us- including Donald Trump himself- now believe there is a redeeming value for it. Thanks to 2016, we are now capable of debating the finer points of the electoral system against the legions of Americans who are suddenly engaged in politics and believe that a popular vote is a better way to go.  When Al Gore lost the electoral college thanks to a few hanging chads, nobody really understood what the hell that all meant.

We are so sophisticated now that we even understand the difference between a primary and a caucus and how each party protects their own process from the impact of outside intrusion by forcing participants to register for a caucus or primary months in advance instead of allowing an opposing party to taint a primary by participating only to sway the vote one way or another. We don't really like a lot of the realities of all that exclusionary behavior that comes along with caucuses and primaries, but we actually understand it now.

......and what is so bad about that?

If 2016 has been one thing positive for us, it has been muscle building that we sorely needed. We've never needed muscle building that involves paying too much for gas (Thanks, Obama) so hopefully Trump and Putin aren't working on a plan to raise prices for major oil producers like Russia and Exxon who have suffered under the new market reality relative to the price of oil. WE will also never need housing prices that our wages can not afford, yet, we did need some muscle building relative to our family budgets and our ability to make more out of our money by eating more rice and beans and DIY living that we often reject during times of prosperity.

Unemployment is down even if it's partly because of people quitting the workforce altogether. Our unwillingness to accept low-paying work in the months leading up to 2016 has forced the hands of every low-wage employer. Now, whether states increase the minimum wage or not, companies are currently desperate for employees, forcing many employers to offer wages above the liberal pursuit of $15.

Thanks, 2016!!

Maybe, 2016 doesn't deserve credit for people quitting the workforce, but 2016 was the year when the employers gave in and started trying to lure them back with better wages. If we are simply asking for 2016 to go away because we think that 2017 couldn't be worse, how exactly do we know that?

High expectation is the mother of disappointment, and I am not willing to waste all of the muscles that I gained in 2016 begging for easier workouts in 2017. In fact, I don't really want an easy 2017 if it means a return to the flimsy muscles that produced the fake relationships that I let go of already. Sure, fake felt easier, but easy isn't always a sign of substance. In 2016, I discovered much more clearly who is for me and who is not, just as many of you did too. I refuse to go back and nurture fake relationships anymore.

I'd prefer 2016's realness and rawness for the rest of my life. Not the pain necessarily, but certainly the pain if it comes with a deeper well of emotion and a stronger capacity for feeling. In a deeper well, there is a lot more things to hurt you, however, that is the well in which love and hope reside too.

Yeah, we lost Prince. But thanks to 2016, I'll never have to
be too macho to blast "Do Me Baby" while driving down the street again. WE grew in 2016 and have evolved into something new and different. Quite frankly, 2017 had better be ready for the change in US.