Hey at least we didn't die

like everyone else. Though hey, Mr. Trump's going to be president in a few days, so we (brown people) might count 2017 as our last year on earth.

But man, this year, eh? What an absolute shit show.

Dear 2016,

You. Broke. Me.

That's right. On more than one occasion, I, the invincible woman, the Mexican Geordie, thought that it would be better to just stay in bed, under the covers, and wait until I dehydrated to death or something like that, rather than to face you.

You, with your injustice. You, with your deceit. You, with your selfishness. You, with your darkness. With your death.

In many ways it is as if you'd killed me. Like you killed my joy, my trust, my faith, my dreams, my desire to love. In some very dark days, even my will to be alive. Because there were times when I wondered: wait, is life this? Just this? That's it? I have to do this for the rest of it? And the prospect just seemed so overwhelming and terrifying that I wanted to scream until I had no voice left.

And yeah, people are complaining because you're an asshole, 2016, and you've taken away so many wonderful people and all. But I'm complaining about all that you've taken away from me. How painful the losses of this year have been.

It hurts so much, physically, to have to continue breathing even in the moments when you can't find a single reason to do so. It is unbearable to have to watch those people whose names are knitted in the very fibers of your heart suffer and writhe in pain and despair and not be able to do anything to help them, to save them, to buy them more time.

So we humans--being humans--find it easier to cope by blaming you, a year, for being an absolute piece of shit scumbag. Pardon my language. But really, when we start thinking about it, what are we doing here? Blaming a span of 12 months? For the mistakes of others? For their betrayals? For their greed and selfishness? For our own flaws? For life being life and death being death?

Life's so damn hard. It really is. I type that as I attempt to tune out the absolutely horrifying meltdown of a pre-teen boy with autism who has been in tantrum-mode for over 24 hours now. No one can help him. No one can calm him down. I'll leave you that for a picture of helplessness. A person you love, abusing himself, abusing those around you, because he cannot help it. Life is so hard sometimes that it feels exactly like that.

Why? Why does it have to be this way, right? It's atrocious. I'm telling you this with a heart full of anguish, which is my typical state nowadays, I think.

I do not know why. I do not claim to have an understanding of God, or humanity, or even myself, to be honest. All I know is that, despite it all, 2016, somehow, quite inexplicably to me, I am still here.

Somehow, stupid year, you are dying, and I'm still alive. I am a living organism and, what's even more fantastic, I seem to be able to get up in the morning, shower, brush my teeth, and hustle. In this broken world, with this broken heart. Show up early to work. Bust my ass. Get nominated for Teacher of the Year. Encounter not-so-little dudes and dudettes who tell me they miss me and they wish they could be my students again. Answer the questions of curious will-be-Catholic children. Wash my dishes. Pay my bills. Write a baby masterpiece on this blog once in a while. Make someone spit their drink with laughter.

I've spent this year feeling so defeated and useless. Perhaps I am. God knows the only thing I was ever the best at was being a footballer. Not much since, and it's been 14 years. But heck, by pure stubbornness, by just my ridiculous pride, ego, whatever you might call it, I am still kicking around this world and working like a beast and trying. Trying to do the adult thing. Trying to do the life thing.

Then I think, just for a tad, of the people who showed kindness instead of selfishness; loyalty instead of betrayal. And I realize quickly that they're the only reason I'm still here, getting up from bed and feeding myself and bathing. The loves of my life. The ones that pick me up when I'm down, and when all fails, drag me around until I get my act together.

THE LOVE. It is so mystifying to be pierced in the heart by the affection of people who love me despite my own imperfections, who take care of me when I don't want to take care of myself anymore, who revive me with their own silliness, and sweetness, and sincerity, and bluntness. People who gave me the fuel, via memories, to keep going when all systems failed.

2016, you broke me. I felt my heart bleed dry at times. I felt anxiety crawl in the walls of my throat. I felt despair gripping my head with its claws. Yet, perhaps to spite you, perhaps because God did have some mercy of me after all, I made it. I'm making it.

And you want to know what's even more incredible than that? I swam in the Mediterranean. I made a difference in at least one child's life. I saw how wonderful I am as a girlfriend. I walked more than 20 miles on two completely blistered feet. I held my best friends in my arms unreservedly and I made sure they knew what they are to me. I wrote amazing poetry. I shopped until I dropped. I did the Running Man challenge. I ate banana off the floor for 10 bucks.

Lastly...

I literally laughed my ass off.

Can't say I'll miss you, 2016. But thank YOU, person reading this, for giving me the strength to keep going. You stay in my heart.