Good Riddance To You, 2016

Good riddance to you, 2016. The year full of hate, full of agony, and pain that seeped into our cells. Good riddance to all the damage you did to our hearts, and to all the false hope you spread into our souls.

I had high hopes for you. I had high hopes for the world, and for my country. I had high hopes for the 2016 election, and for the electoral college process.

I had high hopes that we all knew better.

I had high hopes for my friend’s lives. I had high hopes for their success and for their happiness. But, you let them down in more ways than one. You let them down when they did nothing wrong, and you put permanent marks on their heart that won’t ever heal fully.

I had high hopes for myself. I had high hopes that 2016 would be the year I took control of my anxiety, that it would be the time where I could finally control my own body and my own heart rate. But, you were the year that anxiety fully took over my entire system.

I had high hopes for the world. That the world would prosper, and grow into something beautiful. I had high hopes that peace would finally make its way into everyone’s hearts, and that ignorance would slowly die along with the crying, wilted flowers. I had hopes that people would finally see eye to eye. And that people would learn to accept one another’s differences, instead of hating them for it.

I had high hopes for you, you know. Hopes that we could all do better and be better people. Hopes that better things would come to the people I love, and that greater things would come to people who truly needed it. I had hopes that everyone could finally get along, or at least have respect for fellow human beings.

2016, I wanted you to be the year everything changed. The year that everything and everyone would become brighter, more wiser, and more beautiful.

But damn, you sure were a let down. So good riddance to you. Good riddance to hate, to ignorance, and to selfishness. Good riddance to war and to violence that pumped bullets into people’s souls and bones. Good riddance to jealousy, and to rape, and to men who hate women just because they are women.

Good riddance to racism, to homophobia, and to fear.

Good riddance to you, 2016. Good riddance to you.