Well, we've made it. We've reached the end of 2017 and are about to embark on the new 365-day journey we will know as 2018.
For many of us, 2017 has been quite a year. New words and non-words have entered the public consciousness (covfefe, anyone?), familiar faces have left us, while other familiar and not-so-familiar names and faces have been in the news for unexpected reasons.
There is a lot on my mind as I write this and much I could say about 2017 (and probably would with a bit more alcohol), but there are several words that come to mind as I think back over the past 365 days.
Eventful is the first word that comes to mind. 2017 has been an eventful year in many ways. Of course, we swore in a new President who has managed to get his name and face in the news every single day since. We've also had numerous events both at home and abroad that have filled the front pages of newspapers (remember those?) and the screens of newscasts everywhere.
Another word that comes to mind and which relates to my first word is busy. 2017 has been a very busy year, at least for us, and it certainly feels as if it has been busy for a great many other people as well.
We've had friends move, other friends sending off their children to college, relatives having children. In other words, life. Somehow, though, it seems as if life itself is getting busier. That could be due to the increased presence of social media, which allows me to stay in touch more easily with family and friends and to reconnect with long-lost friends (a positive) while also allowing people to spew hate speech and angry words at people they don't know simply because they disagree (a negative).
Life could also be busier simply because there are more of us on this planet and, therefore, more people to interact with, respond to, account for, be influenced by.
For us, 2017 was busier simply because we were doing more. Our son turned 21, so there was additional work trying to help him transition into adulthood. We also did more with music, performing some 30 gigs around town. And we managed to put together a CD of original music and write a number of new songs.
I'm sure 2018 will be its own share of challenges and adventures. For one, there will be the challenge and adventure of growing another year older. (I won't make any claim to getting wiser.) There will be much, no doubt, that will play out on the national and international stage. And, of course, there will be the usual cycle of life occurrences associated with living and dying.
When I was younger, I liked to make ten resolutions, all of which I would break over the course of the new year, usually before January ended. This year, I think I'll stick to one resolution, though it has several parts.
In 2018, I resolve to continue working toward becoming more comfortable in my own skin and to becoming truer to my self and to my convictions, to determining what I truly believe and working to live up to those beliefs.
May the new year bring each of you joy and peace and music. You know what they say - a day without music is like a day without sunshine. Happy New Year!
Showing posts with label 2017. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2017. Show all posts
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Saturday, December 31, 2016
#218 - A Year To Forget, A Year To Remember
In many ways, I will not be sorry to see the back of 2016. The year got off to a rocky start with the death in January of David Bowie and continued on through the double whammy deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds.
In between, a number of famous and important people left the scene, and a minority of Americans succeeded in handing the keys to the candy store (and the nuclear arsenal) to an rude and overbearing reality TV host. It's as if The Truman Show (the Jim Carrey movie in which his entire life is fodder for reality TV and he's the only one not in on it) has been flipped on its ear, the script pages mixed with those of Panic In The Year Zero (the 1962 Ray Milland film about a family which must learn to survive in the aftermath of nuclear war) to give birth to some sort of Nightmare on Elm Street revision in which the nightmare is all too real.
I have little in the way of expectations for positive change from the incoming administration, and based on some of the names on the transition team and those being bandied about for Cabinet posts, I doubt I'll be pleasantly disappointed.
I am lucky in that I do not expect my life to be negatively impacted much by the Trump presidency. My fear is that millions of others will not be able to say the same.
Based on the rhetoric coming out of Washington since the election, attempts will again be made to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly. This, even though those two groups make up a smaller portion of federal spending than military spending, federal subsidies, and tax breaks for large corporations.
I expect to see racism become, if not more prevalent, more visible and overt over the next four years. The change is already taking place as evident in the turning of a family's outdoor Menorah display into a swastika. The incoming President may not be a racist, but I believe he is an enabler of such behavior.
This last year, quite frankly, sucked in a lot of ways, and I could continue to lament what happened and outline my fears regarding what lies ahead. Instead, I will hope to be wrong and will hope that in 2017 fewer people than I expect will suffer a rolling back of rights; that fewer people than I expect will be excluded from the safety net that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were created to provide; and that more people than I expect will find love in their hearts for people who are different from themselves.
Happy New Year, everyone.
In between, a number of famous and important people left the scene, and a minority of Americans succeeded in handing the keys to the candy store (and the nuclear arsenal) to an rude and overbearing reality TV host. It's as if The Truman Show (the Jim Carrey movie in which his entire life is fodder for reality TV and he's the only one not in on it) has been flipped on its ear, the script pages mixed with those of Panic In The Year Zero (the 1962 Ray Milland film about a family which must learn to survive in the aftermath of nuclear war) to give birth to some sort of Nightmare on Elm Street revision in which the nightmare is all too real.
I have little in the way of expectations for positive change from the incoming administration, and based on some of the names on the transition team and those being bandied about for Cabinet posts, I doubt I'll be pleasantly disappointed.
I am lucky in that I do not expect my life to be negatively impacted much by the Trump presidency. My fear is that millions of others will not be able to say the same.
Based on the rhetoric coming out of Washington since the election, attempts will again be made to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly. This, even though those two groups make up a smaller portion of federal spending than military spending, federal subsidies, and tax breaks for large corporations.
I expect to see racism become, if not more prevalent, more visible and overt over the next four years. The change is already taking place as evident in the turning of a family's outdoor Menorah display into a swastika. The incoming President may not be a racist, but I believe he is an enabler of such behavior.
This last year, quite frankly, sucked in a lot of ways, and I could continue to lament what happened and outline my fears regarding what lies ahead. Instead, I will hope to be wrong and will hope that in 2017 fewer people than I expect will suffer a rolling back of rights; that fewer people than I expect will be excluded from the safety net that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were created to provide; and that more people than I expect will find love in their hearts for people who are different from themselves.
Happy New Year, everyone.
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