Year of the Transition

With everything that happened in 2016, my friends and I may have been overly optimistic about 2017. At our yearly New Years Day brunch, we usually brainstorm a name for what the coming year has instore for us. It started very jokingly in 2014: Year of the Butt Stuff. With our heads still up our asses, we foresaw things repeating and named 2015 Year of the Throwback; plenty of shows and movies saw revivals that year, so we felt magical. 2016, however, was a brunch full of shady jokes and insults. We named it Year of the Savage in tribute of that day. Little did we know our true power.

Realizing that with great power comes much responsibility, I led the charge for naming 2017 Year of the Blessing. Things were so rough for us all and the country, there didn't seem anywhere to go but up. However, a true savage never dies, and 2016 still had its claws in our backs. Throughout the year, couples broke up, homes were broken into, jobs were lost or unobtained, and the country looked bleaker than ever as Trump and the Republicans/Conservatives undid everything Barack touched.

It's been mentioned that as we get older, things seem worse and worse because we continue to see the world for what it is and how bleek our lives can be. I don't want to believe that. I refuse to focus on the wackness; I want to see the dopeness.

That said, this year has produced wonderful things. Two of my best friends welcomed their first daughter into the world, and while she had her complications healthwise, she continued to be a shining bundle of joy every time I saw her. Beyonce also had her twins, so.

For a multitude of reasons, many of us in the friend group have moved to new homes in Baltimore. Some upgrades, some downgrades, but we're saving money and in better headspaces. Thanks to this, some friendships have become stronger than ever. One friend even purchased an Oculus headset and I didn't break his tv when I tried it out; if that's not moving up and helping build relationships, I don't know what is.

Job offers popped up: from climbing the corporate ladder with more conventional hours to surveying Baltimore's syphilis infected population. The actors among us are still getting work, some even crafting powerful shows about women of colors struggles through the lens of the Salem witch trials. I even heard someone became a captain without acquiring a need for an eyepatch.

And through we age and lose friends, new ones took their place and proved to be wonderful improvements to your life.

With all the blessings in disguise that have come this year, I revised 2017 to be Year of the Transition. It could be argued that our lives are in a constant state of transition if we are truly living. If that's the case, then I don't think we've been wrong about naming a year yet.

Here's to 2018 and whatever wackiness it may bring.

Word