I don't know when it shifted, somewhere in the mid-teens. Well, that's a lie. It was 2016, to be precise about it.
Prior to that, the new year was usually a moment of hope. It marked new promise, new possibilities. Things to look forward to. Kisses, singing, fireworks, and of course resolutions made with evidence-resistant certainty that this time will be different. But whatever the specific experience, the common shared baseline was that we were looking toward something.
Then 2016 happened. That was when we stopped saying hello to the future and started telling the past to go fuck itself.
We were so weary at the end of that year, remember? November took the life straight out of half the country. The worst person in the history of American electoral politics, a stunningly stupid and corrupt and vicious man whose biggest aspiration in life was to be a mob boss, became our president. And he was elected precisely because he was stupid and corrupt and vicious. That was the selling point. And it worked. Millions cheered.
What followed was year after year of good, thoughtful people saying the same thing in unison with keyboards and mouths every December 31st: "Good riddance."
Even knowing what happened that year, it seems adorable that we would gotten to that level of despair before 2020, arguably the worst year in American history since the 1860s. It was the last of four solid years spent watching the news to find out what the hell he was going to break today, the first year of a plague that would conservatively kill a million people in this country alone, the year that good and reasonable people had to fight to an unreasonable extent to keep the dumb useless bastard from being reelected. The year that ended six days before the fine, upstanding Christian folks who supported him tried to stage a violent coup and end American democracy so they could claim the power that was and is their actual god.
Yeah. I'm tired too.
The last three or so years have been the hardest of my life. With all of that as background static, I've faced a bunch of personal trials, a pile of problems that have had no simple solution, if they've had any solution at all. Chronic and sometimes screaming tinnitus that no one knows how to treat. Two completely-out-of-left-field strokes that I am reliably informed should have at least handicapped me and probably killed me. The psychological and marital fallout of those strokes. A good job that turned into a toxic shitshow, followed by another, better place that (through no malice or wrongdoing, just stupid luck) got me stuck in a corner working on the worst project I have ever dealt with in my career. Hell, even exercise became an endless hamster wheel of stress and frustration. I tried to manage all of that while wondering if the plague would claim anyone I love, wondering how bad my dad's cognitive decline is getting, wondering if I did my children a disservice by bringing them into this world.
It's moments like these that I lean on the serenity prayer. If you prefer a less Christian formulation, and I certainly don't blame you if you do, then let's go to Eckhart Tolle: "When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness."
Change what you can. If you can't change it, shake the dust off your feet. If you can't leave, the only thing left is acceptance.
So I've started doing that. The things that I can change are getting my best effort. The things that I can't change are getting yanked off the pile without warning, explanation or apology, if they can be. Everything else gets all the acceptance I can muster.
You have no idea how many times a week I've coached myself on this in the last three years. Well, probably you do. You're probably like most reasonable people, raising a middle finger in lieu of a glass of champagne at the passing of the year. You're probably coaching yourself too.
That virus and them goddamn rednecks just about beat the optimism straight out of us, ain't they? But I'm determined not to let them beat me. Not to kill my ability to look up.
We're going back to the moon, y'all. It's been bumpy as hell going back there, and we're way behind schedule, but we're going back to the moon, and that's just the first step towards Mars and beyond. Ain't no fuckin redneck can even conceive of such a thing, much less do it. Hell, half of them aren't sure that the world is round. They don't know how to dream, much less how to build what they dream.
I hold tightly to that, and to this: Optimism is a form of rebellion. It is a way to fight back. Despair is a sin because it's exactly what your enemies want you to do. So. Fuck 'em. We're going back to the moon, and things are going to get better. We're going to fight hard to make sure they do.
So here's my resolution: I'm probably going to get weary, and I'm probably going to get frustrated and pissed off, and I'm probably going to have days when I check out. But I'm not going to despair. I'm going to stay optimistic. I'm tired of hating the past. Better to learn from it, to let that pain reveal what I'm clinging to, and to let my hands open so they can grasp the possibility that lies before me.
Here's to 2023. Happy New Year.