|| 2016 ||
All I hear about 2016 was that it was a horrible year and that it was the worst year in some of our lives and that 2017 couldn't have come faster. I definitely understand. Oh how much I understand. 2016? I could wait for it to be over because I couldn't wait for the worst heartache in my teenage life to end. I couldn't wait for the nightmare that became Donald Trump's joke of a campaign to end. I couldn't wait for college apps to be over and decisions to be done with. I couldn't wait for each of my 5 colds in college to end. I couldn't wait for my high school graduation so that I could just move on with my life. I couldn't wait for huge parts of my life to be over because I was eager to welcome the next part of my life with open arms.
I was wrong though.
That unbearable heartache? It taught me to be careful in who I give my heart to. It taught me to be more straightforward and to embrace confrontation. It taught me to prioritize self-care over self-sacrifice. It taught me that friendship is so much more valuable than a fleeting skip of the heart. It taught me that heartache is necessary to move on and to completely learn from an experience. It taught me.
Donald Trump? He was a nightmare and he still will continue to be -- either with his stupidity, lack of common courtesy, or extremely impulsive Tweets. But believe it or not, Donald Trump's campaign was able to produce even the thinnest of silver linings. We learned that we have been suppressing the voice of another part of America. Social media created echo chambers that we were unaware of and we were each living in our own respective worlds. We were allowing ourselves to ignore other humans that we were living with. It's painful. His election is not a walk in the park for the liberals that see it as a bad omen for the next 4 years. But I want to see it as an opportunity to mend ourselves as a nation. It's not going to be easy, but when was life ever easy? Sometimes it's a struggle to merely open a jar of jam, who told us that mending an entire nation was going to be a piece of cake? Donald Trump has opened up many wounds, but they were wounds that had to be revealed and addressed before they became even more infected. The best thing he did for us as a society was ripping off the band-aid and stopping us from lying to ourselves for another moment. We're now forced to look the problem in the eye and to say, "We're not afraid of you. We're going to overcome you."
College apps & decisions? Okay I can't ever say that they were fun - but they definitely taught me to be confident in who I am as a person. College decisions are never easy and they never will be for any generation. But college apps and decisions taught me that my value lies in something much more valuable than an acceptance letter. Everything that I wrote in each supplement and each personal statement became a testament to how I saw myself. It pushed me to think of myself and what I had accomplished and to value myself for once. It made me stop and think about what I loved about myself because if I didn't love who I was as a candidate, it'd be unfair for me to expect any loving from the college app readers. And wow, senior year was amazing. It was definitely the hardest year of high school, but it made me value friendship and communication. And now after having finished my first semester of college, it's made me value time and the opening for relaxation I have, whenever I am allotted it.
Enough said. I hated being sick. I honestly couldn't wait for those to be over. Ventilate your dorms, people. Ventilate.
Graduation. Wow. 2016 was the year that I closed a very long chapter of my life. I said good-bye to Key Club, TEDxWhitneyHigh, and Pen on Paper. I said good-bye to my high school life, those orange lockers, my cardboard box of a school. I said good-bye to people I had known for 6 years and a live I had created during those 6 years. I said good-bye to progress that I had made in high school and I said good-bye to an older version of myself. I let go of many petty things and said hello to a more straightforward and assertive version of myself. 2016 was the year I graduated from a previous version of myself. 2016 was important to me. Call it the worst year of the century all you want, but 2016 will forever be important to me for several reasons. I graduated, I opened my eyes, and I began to search for my calling. All the tragedies that happened in 2016 were horrible, I won't deny that. But I can't help but search for the silver lining. The silver lining you ask? This year became a learning experience for the entire world. We messed up really badly at times, but hopefully we learned. I definitely did.