On New Year’s Day, I’d been planning on posting a run-of-the-mill, optimistic, “Happy New Year!” posting. With all this talk of how much 2016 sucked, I figured it was called for. While 2016 was indeed a sucky year all around, for me and my new cancer friends, it was particularly sucky, and the arrival of 2017 has been welcomed with enthusiasm. I even had a jpeg picked out:

But I hesitated. If only it were so easy to “decide” such a thing. 2016 had a rough start for us when a very close family member passed away (ok, yeah, 2016 really sucked). But shortly after that, I’d been able to cross something off my bucket list by taking the Sierra Club’s Wilderness Basics Class. I’d wanted to take this class for over fifteen years. Tad took it in the late ’90s and told me about it when I first met him, and I’d since heard it mentioned often in San Diego’s outdoor enthusiast community. The class is a time commitment: one long evening per week, and a camping trip every other weekend for four trips. Plus all the planning and packing and gear organizing in between. I managed to squeeze it into my schedule, and it was awesome. After completing the course in March, I had just started training to become a trip leader when I got my cancer diagnosis and the fun screeched to a halt.

As I was reflecting on 2016 and looking forward to the upcoming year, I thought about the WBC class and how that seems like a lifetime ago. I had high hopes for 2016, too, and certainly never saw this coming. I don’t say all this to be pessimistic; more of an awareness that life has its ups and downs. We hope for the best and we prepare for the worst. Yes, 2017 will be ridiculously amazing, and we will all keep rolling with the punches.