Go Home 2016, You're Drunk.

Look, I know tomorrow is just the same as today, in the big scheme of things. A year can't be given a depressing level of ignominy unless we imbue it ourselves. We're just little people, spinning around on a pale blue dot, floating in a mass of dust, in the middle of a grand expanse of nothing and everything. We, we are nothing and everything. We, and our world around us, are what we make of it.

But 2016 has been a bitch at times.

From persistent, hard-to-explain ickiness in my body, to months off the bike (goodbye, years of work...), to an election cycle that managed to pique my bullying-induced PTSD (I'm owning this and calling it what it is.), things have been tough. Especially following last year's Midas Year that was a bit like a year long version of Robert Earl Keen's "Feelin' Good Again", any year might feel like the dumps. Also, my clothes don't fit.

My experience hasn't been singular, however. So many I know have expressed the same sentiment:

2016, you've been bad. Do not pass go, do not collect $100, go straight to jail, bad.

But in the midst of the no-good, the rotten, the despicable, there has also been so much sweetness, so much good. New, wonderful friends, without whom I don't think I could see myself making it through this year with a smile on my face like I have.

A new resolve to do the right thing and live altruistically and empathetically in a world that seems mired in apathy. The birth of new ideas, born of time off the bike, in which I had freedom of thought in a whole new way. New, fantastic ideas, full of beauty and just waiting to be executed when my hands, mind, and heart become skilled. Free time spent under canopies of trees, with dirt and dust underfoot, experiencing the world not on two wheels, but on two feet.

Time dedicated to yoga, to stretching my mind and body, learning to truly relax, in a deep, fulfilling way. I've decrypted some of my mystery symptoms, and found solutions. I learned to creatively problem solve, often on the fly, with little notice. Improvisation has become one of my greatest tools. I've learned to be silent and cultivate peace within, even when the world around is going batshit crazy. I've learned to judge less and listen more. I've read, and read some more.

This isn't a new year, new me program. The evolution of our personage happens organically, sporadically. Often, that growth happens in unexpected, unplanned ways. I wish my clothes fit, but I can buy new ones. I wish I hadn't lost a year of fitness on the bike, but I'm fit in other ways. I wish events had transpired differently, but I can't control the world around me. It's a carpe the diem every damn day until you're kicking up daisies kind of program.

This year has been uncomfortable. So fucking uncomfortable. But that's when beautiful new things happen within us, when we learn to protect our joy from change, to explore, explore, and explore some more, to find the new us, just as beautiful as the iteration before, but different, built for battle, built for peace, built for whatever the sea sends. This year spent at harbor has been hard, to me, but it simply is. And I simply am. I am dust on the dot in the sky full of stars.

Happy New Year, and cheers to a better, badassier 2017. I know we all need it.