I agree with this, which is why I’ve refrained from posting in this thread. I have a feeling that quite a number of us will be wishing for the “good old days of 2016” within a very short time.
I hope you didn’t include a tip.
I won’t go into problems that only involved me but since April I’ve been witnessing my mother’s steady mental decline. I also unexpectedly lost my aunt in November.
For a number of reasons that cover both things in my life and the rest of the world, I’m not looking forward to what’s likely ahead in 2017.
Yeah, ain’t it a great comfort to know* it can always get worse*. :rolleyes:
My dad died (cancer), my MIL died (cancer), my dog died (suddenly and unexpectedly…cancer), a close friend was diagnosed with a particularly horrid kind of cancer. On the money front, we had to replace our a/c, my son had to have eye surgery because of an injury, we had to pony up a substantial and unexpected amount for my MIL’s funeral, and I had to have a root canal. I’m not hoping for a fantastic 2017, just a non-eventful year so that we can start to recover, both emotionally and financially.
In addition to all of the crap the rest of the world has had to put up with from 2016, I got laid off in June. I got a new job fairly quickly, but it paid less than I’ve made in the past twelve years and wasn’t much of a challenge at all. I hated it, but at least it kept me from having to move yet again.
And then I got my dream job yesterday, so things are looking up for 2017. I’ll be giving my current job my notice today.
Yeesh. If anybody deserves a ‘‘fuck cancer’’ t-shirt, it’s you.
Good: saw the total solar eclipse in Indonesia, joined a good club.
Bad: turned 50, the cluster-fuck that is Brexit, uveitis recurred. Still looking for a new career.
Best of the year: A new store manager at work, who happens to be an old friend of mine.
Worst of the year: My brother is going senile.
For me, it wasn’t all the terrible stuff that happened (there have been worse years) so much as all the stuff that either didn’t improve or regressed, all of which pretty much killed any hopes I had of living in a decent world within my lifetime. A partial list:
- The rise of the extreme right in Europe, which is somehow happening flippin’ again despite it never, never, never, never ever producing anything within fifty klicks of a positive result.
- The anti-vaxxers still not completely discredited and told to shut up and let the grownups work. And anyone at all still listening to Jenny McCarthy.
- ISIS, a vile terrorist organization which a dozen nations have battled tooth and nail for years and made absolutely zippo progress in wiping out.
- Gamergate, the lives its trashed, and the lack of anything near an adequate response by the video game industry and community.
- Next to no real effort by anyone to combat global warming.
- Every attempt at making renewable energy viable gets ridiculed, mocked, and shouted into the ground, despite the fact that there will come a point where we don’t have any damn choice.
- The seemingly endless horror stories surrounding Facebook and Twitter, and the site managements’ sense of urgency about it akin to a stoner with ADD.
- The never-ending threats to Planned Parenthood, an organization whose purpose is to prevent unwanted children, something which a trip to the damned mall should convince even the dimmest bulb is a noteworthy goal.
- An entire generation that’s saddled with crippling student debt and chronic underemployment, with no hope for improvement, and nobody else in the country being particularly concerned about that.
- It’s still possible to be a victim of horrific violence simply by being transsexual, or black, or Muslim, or Jewish, or in some cases female, instead of, y’know, something actually wrong like forcing ones petty anal-retentive worldview on others via horrific violence.
- And yes, homophobia, too, was still something that effin’ existed in twenty-goddam-sixteen.
- After the sexual revolution of the 60’s, after the adult entertainment explosion of the 80’s, after the VCR revolution turned X-rated movies into a mass market, and after the Internet came along and blew the lid off every fetish and obsession imaginable, Japan STILL censors genitalia based on some ludicrous 50’s ideal.
- Oh yeah, Donald Trump got elected president.
What happened to the old making way for the new? The kids throwing off the shackles of their grandparents? Hell, just getting used to things like recreational marijuana use and transsexualism and women being elected to high office and not being able to spew offensive crap on nationally televised football shows without consequences. For much of the 90’s and 00’s, I saw signs…not revolutionary, but signs, here and there…that humanity on the whole was ever so slowly pulling its head out of its butt. Then 2016 comes along and humanity decides it likes the darkness and smell after all.
Worst of year: Every single one of my major health problems has gotten much worse, and the surgery I was looking forward to is too risky. I’m unable to do my work, and income is at a minimum. Oh, and my most beloved kitteh has multiple cancers.
And Trump.
Best of year: My husband.
You might enjoy the 2016 rant song by brit artistes Flo and Joan.
VERY NSFW language so broke link.
It’s been an Annus Mirabilis rather than Horribilis from my perspective, at least on the political front. Leonard Cohen’s death was hard to bear though and on the personal side I’ve had better years, but that’s going to be true of every year once you pass 60.
My husband spent most of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the hospital, which was sucky enough, but it turned out the problem was cancer.
Fuck you, 2016, and fuck cancer, too.
In 2016:
[ul][li]My parents went from homeowners to assisted-living residents. [/li]
[li]My mom went from walking and talking to being wheelchair-bound and speaking only with some effort.[/li]
[li]My dad went from driving to not driving. [/li]
[li]They both want to die soon. [/li]
My “11,000 crash-free days” driving record reset to zero when I totaled my car, a car I liked a lot that was pretty much impossible to replace.[/ul]On the plus side, I survived the crash pretty much scratch-free, and my parents are still alive. There’s always 2017…