2016 and I were Frenemies at Best

Happy New Year, everyone! I realize that it's been a new year for 17 days now and that I'm a little late to this party. But, to be fair, I wasn't in the country and had no wifi. Anyway, I hope everyone had a fun New Year's Eve and is having a positive start to 2017. 

In all honesty, New Year's Eve is my second least favorite holiday. It will officially be my least favorite as soon as we all realize how problematic Columbus Day is and kick it off our calendars for good. Regardless, New Year's Eve has always been a huge let down for me. It's an exhausting holiday full of nostalgia, which can be really hard to bear when you've had a bad year. 

I'm not what you would call a "positive" person. The glass is generally half-empty for me. I can't just say goodbye to a year and only remember the good moments. To me, it's just not truthful to look at the past this way. 

I look at the past and I see a complicated story. It had highs and lows. Some of the choices I made totally worked out. Some of them were reckless and cost me dearly. Sure, focusing on the highs at the end of the year will probably make me feel better. But, I can't ignore those lows. Valuable lessons can be learned from mistakes and missteps. I'm on my way to becoming a better person. I want to be happier. I want to be more organized. I want to battle my social anxiety and develop a stronger support system for myself. If I don't reflect on how I failed to do these things in the past, I might not learn how to accomplish these things in the future. This mentality really irritated some of the optimists in my life who just wanted me to let 2016 go and remember the good times. To them I say: 2016 and I were frenemies at best. So, no. 2016 doesn't get to be remembered for just the good times.

All my animosity for 2016 aside, I would be quite neglectful if I didn't mention the best thing to happen to me in 2016: The Story of Consent. The whole process of creating this site was so therapeutic for me. Ali and I received a lot of praise for our work on this site. Because of this site, people I haven't talked to in years have reached out to me to thank us for making this site. Our Tumblr has received countless messages expressing their love for the site. Last week, a girl in one of my classes stopped me after we were dismissed to talk about the site. We ended up talking for half an hour about how nice it is to not feel alone when it comes to these issues. This site has given me so much. It's given me new connections with people I never would have reached out to. It's given me a close relationship with Ali. It's given me an outlet to funnel my personal experiences into something good. It's given me a purpose.

Thank you all for your support of this site. I look forward to another year of running this site and reading your contributions. And, I hope that 2017 is good to all of you. I'm doing my best to make 2017 a better chapter than the last. I'm going to fight for myself, and I hope you all do the same.

With love,

Alex