Another Goodbye (And Another Rant)

Reflection is a dangerous and often bitter act, for trying to remember something as it truly was is harder then trying to create perfection. Holding a mirror up to the past is impossible, the reflection could never be accurate; we never remember things as they truly are, only how we wanted them to be. But like all dangerous acts, reflection is necessary for change.

We can only use our perceptions and memories of what happened to piece together the past 365 days. We can look at the hard facts, the recorded videos, the photographic evidence of 2016 and find as much bad and as much good as there ever was. Millions suffered at the hands of others; some of the most beautiful, creative minds of our times left us; and our political system has endured one of the largest changes in our generation and in our century. Thankfully, however, there is still beauty and virtue. Amongst all the pain, art was created, minds developed, and people laughed. The Paris Agreement become an international law, the graduation rate is at its highest, and America broke the record for charity donations. I have no doubt this year was painful in some way for us all; no matter what side of the war you are on, disease affects both sides. As much visible pain there was, I believe there was even greater pain hidden in us all. Pains of loss, sadness, and heartache.

Yet now, the biggest horror of the year faces us, will we learn? We have successfully added one more year to the thousands of years of history we can learn from. Will we be able to unite against the larger evils against us all? Could we ever compromise? I hope, I pray, I beg we can use the tragedy and pain from the past year to learn; for if not, only more suffering could continue. There is great power in a disaster, knowledge. The adversities of our past need not to define us but can help pave a more secure future.

The end of one thing always leads to the beginning of another and the truth is 2016 was just another year in an epic time span. It came and gone like the 2015 years before it, and the billions of years of unrecorded time before that. The world has successfully revolved around the sun one more time, and if we’re really lucky I think it will go on.

—By Annette J., 18, Sarasota, Florida ♦