You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…

We had dinner with Chris and Sharon last night – we’d been trying to have dinner with them for about two months but kept having to push it back, and Sharon gave me the loveliest little sampler she cross-stitched…

It’s not that 2016 has been a personally horrific year; in fact, to me, 2016 was pretty good. Sharon and I took a lovely fun road trip and went to see two good friends get married… Tim and I got annual passes to Disney again, went twice this year, and got to stay in the Animal Kingdom resort for one stay and I’d wanted to stay there for years… on that same trip we got to see Heath and Laura and the girls, whom we hadn’t seen for an embarrassing handful of years. We didn’t get the Gainesville house renovated and sold like we wanted, but we did get a nice solid kiln shed for Cetty’s raku setup. The Prozac seems to be working for Corwin and – knock on wood – there haven’t been any dogfights since about late January/early February. None of us are desperately ill and we all have roofs over our heads and food to eat and electricity to heat or cool our houses, depending on the season.

But globally, 2016 has been a kick in the teeth. A massive amount of beloved celebrities and writers lost. Horrible acts of violence, both domestic and abroad. Many of my friends, after the election, are frightened for their rights and the rights of their children. Did I mention the Death Sniper who seems to be aimed at the childhood of kids who came of media age in the 70s and 80s? Gah. I’m still not over David Bowie, and he was the first to go! (Insert joke about how the rest of the celebrity deaths after him is really just him populating his new planet very selectively.) I have friends whom this year have lost parents, friends who have lost beloved pets, friends who have lost jobs, friends who have had health scares, friends who have broken up or gotten divorced or otherwise had shattering life changes. I haven’t had those kind of personal losses this year, for which I am profoundly grateful. Still, I’m glad to see the back end of 2016.

I expect 2017 will see a number of celebrity and author deaths as well, and a saddening amount of global violence and intolerance. I just hope that the small, still light of many people standing for justice and love will outshine the darkness that people fear. If I could boil a wish down for 2017 into one sentence, into an elevator pitch, I think it would be … I hope that there are more people being the light, than not.

And on that note, shine on, you crazy diamonds! See you in 2017!