So long 2016…

Good riddance bitch, you’ll not be missed. In fact, just to piss you off, I’m gonna work on remembering pleasant and positive things from the last year, because the EU vote and the Trump ascendancy have only just begun and if I remember you for those events, then future years are just going to be impossible to face up to – best case scenario; we’ve got years of suffering the consequences of those terrible decisions, worse case; we’ll descend into fascism and war. To imply I’ve suffered from depression at any point last year wouldn’t be true and could be insulting to anybody that genuinely suffers from it, so I won’t. But there have been times I’ve struggled to focus on something other than the anxiety all this is causing, and it gets difficult to shake off. Decades of wealth transference to the rich elite, leaving communities to struggle on without investment, without help, convinced by a lying press that lurching to the right and blaming those who aren’t responsible caused this. The fact that after repeating the catchphrase ‘Drain the Swamp’ on the way to election, he’s now putting Goldman Sachs in positions of power would be hilarious if it didn’t mean unnecessary hardship for so many and the reversal of decades of progress.

But I’ll be fucked if I’m going to let that define my year – those fucking parasites have brought death to our home towns for years, and they’ll continue to do it for years to come. I’m sick of swallowing the fear they’re feeding. I know the people I share my neighbourhood with, whatever skin pigment they have, whatever they pray to, whomever they love, are not the cause of this. I know there’s room for more of them, if only the wealth wasn’t siphoned off elsewhere; if the system was actually given a chance to work as it was supposed to.

So I’m going to remember the year for the good stuff. And if only you focus, you’ll have some good things to remember too. At least, I hope you will. I’m going to remember it for my friend’s wonderful wedding, where I got to dress in a posh suit, spend a few days in the company of many happy and lovely friends and acquaintances in an atmosphere of joy and love. I got to spend the evening in glasses and shoes that light up. I’m going to remember it for a week spent in Wales with the people I love most in the Universe and did nothing but have fun and relax in unseasonably gorgeous weather, by the end of which I think I was possibly more relaxed and content than perhaps I’ve ever been. I’m going to remember that I have books, music, film and video games as well as good friends and loved ones to enjoy them with. I’m going to continue listening to David Bowie and Leonard Cohen, to laugh at Victoria Wood and Caroline Aherne, and to watch movies that were all the better for the presence of Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher, because that’s how you pay tribute to them, not with misery. And I’ll remember it for the million little moments of bliss that make up any year, little moments that become all the more important in years that come with as much bullshit as that one did.

New occasional feature: Ending with a song relating to the post:

The Boss: Death to My Hometown: “Get yourself a song to sing and sing it ‘til you’re done. Sing it hard and sing it well, send the robber barons straight to hell, the greedy thieves who came around and ate the flesh of everything they found, whose crimes have gone unpunished now, who walk the streets as free men now. They bought death to our hometown.”