A New Year Rising

    For millions of Americans 2016 came to a rough end, culminating in the weeks since the surreal outcome of a drawn-out and dreadful presidential election that has that left so many of us feeling mentally battered, devastated and frightened; we are without a doubt a country suffering from widespread PTSD.  I've heard, and you've likely heard too, people saying that 2016 has been such an awful year, 2017 has to be better.
     But the truth is that what made 2016 so awful has been the fearful anticipation of what 2017 will bring for each of us, our country and our world under the rule of our erratic new President.    2016 only planted the seed, which was nurtured,

...into something like a a giant, many-branched tree, powerful but twisted.
     2017 will bear the fruit of that tree for us all.   What we've been suffering up until now hasn't been Post Traumatic Stress disorder, but Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder, even as we ride on the hope that a bad tree might bear good fruit.
     Most of us hold no grand ambitions in life and require  little to make us happy.  We all just want to enjoy life, to  have our basic needs met for ourselves and our loved ones and maybe a few nice possessions besides; to have an occupation or purpose, some friends and family, to be treated decently by our fellow human beings,  to be free to come and go about our daily affairs, to have enough money in our pockets to have a little fun now and then, go out to eat once in a while, maybe be able to take a trip now and then, to live in peace without fear of war or violence befalling us and those we care about.
     Most of us are happy enough to live and let live.  Most of us aren't reaching for the moon, stars, and the sun.  Most of us of just want a reasonably peaceful, pleasant existence, which is what the Trump-terrified among us fear losing in the changes that could be on the horizon in 2017.
      Still, who ever really knows what will happen, and we'll see, day by day, what transpires for our country, our world, and for us all as we each of us begin the jouney that starts today to a new year in the history of our planet.

     Last night, New Year's Eve, I made a resolution to take the coming year one day at a time, and in one year from now, on the last night of December, to look back over the events of 2017 and recall where  the world was at the beginning of the year and see where it is at the end.
    Maybe we'll all be fine after all.