The Opposite of Blue

What’s the opposite of feeling blue? There is no color equivalent to describe a happy emotion, is there? Not really. Not in the simplest of sentences.

For example, ‘I’m blue.’ is pretty much a full sentence. Two tiny little words and people know just how you feel – depressed, melancholy, forlorn, like the world has killed your inner child piece-by-piece for a full year.

But, say ‘I’m’ with any other color and it just doesn’t work to convey happiness. Red, orange, yellow, green, purple, brown, black, white, grey, mauve, chartreuse, hell even pink. None of them are happy colors on their own. Not like the word blue conveys sadness.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past few days as even more of the heroes/celebrities/path-blazers of my generation have been snatched out of this plane of existence. All of us social media peeps can’t avoid the outcry, the memes, the articles that detail every blue detail of the past 365 days.

Silver lining? At least it wasn’t a leap year. Oh, wait…

366 days for the waves of ice cold water to slam into all of our brains. All but numbing us to the constant barrage of names thrown at us this year. Names we will never again hear used in present tense.

Zsa Zsa Gabor, John Glenn, Prince, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Glen Frey, Patty Duke, Harper Lee, Alan Rickman, Gordie Howe, Alan Thicke.

That list is just off the top of my head too, if you want a complete listing of all the amazing souls the world lost this past year you can check out this link, seems pretty comprehensive. Albeit way too long for my liking.

Awards season this year is sure to be a hoot as they spend a half hour per show honoring the fallen. In fact, this year has been so bad, some guy actually started a fund-me type account to order protection for Betty White. 2016 only has 3 days and about 14 hours left.

This year has been a true roller coaster in many ways. Since January, the world beyond my problems not only lost all those people but there was a year-long political campaign fueled by so much vitriol and hate that I almost guarantee anyone reading this who is on social media unfollowed and/or got rid of people they never expected to care that much about.

Views, primarily political made an appearance over here (and here, and here, and in 3 other places) this year. I wouldn’t think of that as strange except the last political related post I wrote before this year was in November of 2012.

And that post was the first since 2008. Yeah, this space isn’t usually a place I discuss world issues unless those issues are directly related to pop culture. (Like every fucking celebrity in the world passing away in a year, for example.)

This election got lost in the blurry lines between culture and pop culture. And, yes, those concepts used to be two different things. Not anymore.

And as if that wasn’t enough, radical people with issues and differing viewpoints on how to be a human, did some scary and shocking shit in a night club in Florida, in the streets of Dallas, TX, and in other countries. Many other countries like Belgium, France, Turkey, Germany.

We killed a gorilla to public outcry and tried to find an alligator like A Cry in the Dark was set at the Grand Floridian.

We watched enormous earthquakes impact Italy, Ecuador. An unconscionable hurricane hit Haiti and the United States.

By the time I got the news that Carrie Fisher had died it felt like emotional and mental whiplash. I just want to lie down now and take a big old nap from all this world shit until 2016 is over.

Because this year was supposed to be fucking awesome. The native people protected their sacred land and water. We had the first ever female nominated for President. Weed became legal in some way shape or form in all but 1 state that had it on the ballot this year. We had the Olympics. The Cubs won the World Series for goodness sake.

On a personal level, this year was pretty awesome. In fact, many super things happened.

I got to see my oldest friend and soul sister who traveled out here to visit us for a few days.

Matt turned 40.

We were fortunate enough to spend time with family we rarely see, as well as some people we saw a lot this year (another bright spot!).

My in-laws moved back to town.

We traveled to a beautiful tropical destination for a literal once-in-a-lifetime trip.

I got to celebrate my birthday in California at a Billy Galewood show.

We finished our final major renovation.

I released three books.

See? All awesome things.

So in 2017 I’ve decided to be more about the day-to-day wonderfulness, the personal victories and beautiful moments like the list right there. Because I’m done with the heaping pile of smelly trash that 2016 tried to become. Moving along. This is all behind us now.

Next year I’m going to be the opposite of blue.

Orange you glad?

Hmm, I agree, that’s weak. I’ll work on it. Next year.

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
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