At the end of the year, social media becomes inundated with posts lamenting the year’s end and eagerly predicting that the upcoming year will be the best one yet. Avoiding all forms of introspection, I made the cursory general facebook post about hoping 2016 will be better.

Now that I have had time to really (over)think 2015, I realize it was a D year. I give it a D because 2015 was truly disappointing. While, it started out like any other year, full of promise, it quickly became stale. The winter passed cold and, for the most part, uneventful. Then summer came with optimism. Then the too short summer gave way to a new school year…my 21st. I was asked to teach English 12 for the first time ever my career. Honestly, I didn’t go to school to teach English. I earned a degree to teach journalism. While I have enjoyed the students immensely, I have not enjoyed the grind of teaching a subject in which I am not interested. I struggled to end the year knowing I was only half way done with the class. My disappointment here comes in the adults who claim it’s really about the kids, when I don’t truly believe that it is always about the kids.

I am disappointed in myself for not accomplishing the things I wanted to accomplish in 2015. I had high hopes for reading through the stack of books I have been putting off for far too long. I did not get to write, as evidenced by the fact my last post here was in June. I feel like I accomplished very little in general.

My biggest disappointment of the year came in the form of a friendship that hit a rough patch. I am loyal…to a fault. And, I guess I expect my friends to be, as well. All I ask is for courtesy, respect and truth. I did not expect to be told half truths and then be confronted with the real story by a third party. Was I hurt? Yes. Can I forgive? Yes. Do I want to forgive and move forward? Most definitely. But I don’t even know where or how to begin.

Here’s moving on, moving up and moving forward.