Author’s note: I started writing this at the beginning of December, and then promptly got distracted. As a result, most of this piece is written from a while back.
In many ways, my 2017 has been a sort of contrasting reflection of my 2016. My 2016 started off okay, got slightly better, before bottoming out in the end. My 2017 started at a fairly low point, but got better; incrementally at first, and then in larger strides. All in all, though, it is probably too soon to call 2017, for a few different reasons.
First, and most immediately relevant, is the fact that I am currently in the midst of trying to pull together college applications. This process probably should have been started with more time before my New Year’s deadline (Author’s note: We got it submitted in time). In my defence: I was told that the software my school uses would make the process streamlined and simple. It might have worked, if the school computers didn’t insist on purging my account from the registry no matter how many times it’s reactivated. Maybe I should have anticipated such problems ahead of time. Alas, I am too often too trusting.
I should say that whether or not I am accepted, or even whether or not my application comes together in time to be submitted will not have a great impact on my overall morale and views of the achievements of the past year. I should say this, but I would be lying. If I get accepted, likely then I will look back on this year as a moderate success overall. Else, I will probably view this year as equivocal; it had its good moments, and it had its bad moments.
In any case, it is difficult for me to internalize the year coming to a close while I have yet to wrap up my last great project of applications. Indeed, this difficulty in coming to grips with the rapid onset of the holiday season has led me, as it often does, to unknowingly procrastinate on gift acquisition. Here I must add that in addition to the considerable distraction of college application, and the unprecedented stress and anxiety which hath befuddled me amidst this process, I have also seemed to have taken ill with viral symptoms.
Among all this equivocating and qualifying, there are a few solid events and conclusions about the year with which I am reasonably comfortable. For one, I received my diploma (I still struggle to grapple with the term “graduation”, as that term carries implications which I believe are misleading), and ceased formal enrollment at my high school. Typing this sounds like I am underselling these events, but in all honesty the formalities were surprisingly anticlimactic compared to the struggling before it.
I traveled a fair bit, spending an appreciable proportion of time at Disney World, visiting the White Mountains and Bretton Woods, and seeing the eclipse, which, even with all the hype, did not disappoint. I attended a record number of Nerdfighter-related events, going first to NerdCon: Nerdfighteria, and then later to the release party for Turtles All The Way Down. Such events are invariably never what I expect, yet still good. Most recently, I embarked on a Disney Cruise which departed from New York and traveled to the Bahamas and to the Disney parks. And though I have not yet been able to fully collect and organize my thoughts on the subject, I must add that for what is otherwise a multi-day car trip, cruise ship is an excellent alternative.
Of course, I traveled a fair amount in 2016 as well, so it’s hard to call the travel record-breaking or year-defining. Nor has the sociopolitical convolution been particularly distinct from yesteryear. Certainly things have been active; chaotic even. But to a large extent this feels like an inevitable consequence of the momentum generated from past events. Indeed, many of the political items which I am inclined to focus on as being of singular historic importance – the mass demonstrations, the special counsel investigation, even the surprising turns of events in elections both domestic and abroad – seem more like reactions to the current conditions than like actions in themselves; and therefore do I feel that they are less relevant to considering this year separate from others.
What has been defining about 2017, at least the latter half of it, has been the appearance of free time in my life for the first time in recent memory. This has had two principal effects.
First, it has led to a proliferation of personal projects, ranging from simple items such as setting up a gallery page, and a crowdfunding campaign, to more ambitious endeavors such as restarting my creative fiction writing, and building a prototype board game. Even though only a handful of these projects have yet been achieved, and none have been the runaway success that my wildest enthusiasm might have daydreamed, I do believe that I am better off from having tried all of them.
Second, I am happier now than in school. Even though the process of wrangling college applications has caused a minor relapse into some of the less healthy mental patterns, and it is difficult to make meaningful data out of the minute to minute fluctuations in mood and happiness, I can say without reservation that I am happier on balance now than at any point since my first year of high school.
Like I said previously, the determination of how 2017 compares will likely be one made in retrospect, partly because the events which are likely to define it in retrospect are still ongoing, and partly because it’s nigh impossible to judge this year in particular devoid of its proper context. That being said, this year has defied my expectations, and has been, if not quite as good as my wildest hopes, then at least, better than the trajectory of the end of 2016 had led me to fear.
