The 1990’s feel like they were just five years ago and I’m just never going to get used to the fact that they weren’t. That whole “we’re closer to the year 2030 then the year 2000” thing doesn’t at all make sense to me. It’s still 2010, isn’t it? Obama is in the midst of his first term, Lady Gaga is all over the headlines, and everyone is making Harlem Shake videos. Hell, maybe MySpace is still around– I don’t know.

But I’m told the year is 2016, so I have no choice but to believe that. (Imagine if it’s actually the year 2080, but everyone has collectively conspired in some Truman-Show fashion to convince me it’s 2016? What an immense effort for such a lame practical joke on their part.) This “2016” character is book-ended by a January and a December and is incidentally drawing to an end here soon.

As we all know or have been told, 2017 is probably going to happen whether we want it to or not. Personally, I want 2017 to happen because 2016 has been lousy. I’m not grateful for a single thing that happened this year. I have a whole list of grievances to take up with Whoever-is-Responsible-For-2016 for allowing these disgraces to happen to me. On February 16, my shoelace came untied in the middle of a shift at work. In April, I had to wear my yellow sweater instead of my brown sweater because I was too lazy to do laundry and the yellow sweater just didn’t look as nice with my outfit. June was a disaster and I sweated 57 times that month. Then, on October 9, I was inconvenienced by a ridiculously slow driver. To top off the definitively worst year of my life, I burnt my Eggo waffle ever so slightly last week and I almost called off work for the day because I was so upset.

Thankfully 2016 is about over though, which means all the awfulness  will automatically stop as a rule. 2017 can only bring good things because a new year means newness. And the misfortune of my life is so common, so old, that logic dictates that if this new year is truly new, the old misfortune will become new fortune. That’s just how that works.

I know every year we all say “Man this year sucked; the next year is going to be so much better.” Then every new year fails us! It’s almost as though we are all punished by the curse of horrible awful years in this horrible awful life on this lousy pathetic cesspool of a planet. What am I doing wrong? I have all the right generic, media-fed, outstanding expectations for the year, and yet I am continuously and immediately disappointed, and I have no choice but to be sorely pessimistic, helplessly cynical, and ruthlessly unpleasant in response to the disgusting and unwarranted inconveniences the world places on me. Ugh!

But 2017 is going to be different. My expectations are way higher this time around, which means it’s gotta be good. I’m still stewing over the hot mess 2016 was, so I’m even more receptive to the potential of 2017– I hope the year just falls into my lap and does everything I want it to. If it fails me this time, I just don’t know what to do. I may have to up my “social media complain game” if things don’t go my way right off the bat. (As I’ve said before, complaining is a sure-fire way to improve your situation and productively solve your problems.)

As a rule, all trends in events stop at the end of December. I don’t know why–I don’t understand time–but that’s just how it is. Time isn’t like this continual thing that beats on; it’s more like a thing that starts and stops every 12 months. So the badness has to stop once 2016 stops, and it’s the year itself–the year personified–that is responsible for the negativity in my life. I’m just the poor, unsuspecting bystander being bullied by this malicious year.

I think 2016 was out to get me, personally. I didn’t make any friends this year (which I don’t understand because I’m such a lovely person), I didn’t do anything fun this year (everything I did was stupid and boring and I was forced to be on my phone the whole time), and I didn’t accomplish anything (which is a real mystery to me because I bitched about wanting to be successful all year and it still didn’t happen). In any case, I’m ready for my year to shine; this time around, it’ll all be different– it has to be! Hello 2017! Put everything together for me!