New Year’s Eve Again

Here we are again, eh? Last day of the year, about to start it all over again tomorrow, a cycle that goes on and on. I love New Year’s Eve/Day for the fresh beginning the transition from one to the other offers. I’ve always felt that way.

This has been a year like all others, filled with triumph and tragedies, challenges and achievements. So much of what caught my attention this year has been documented on this blog, on my podcast, or both. As I’ve noted in the past, this means I don’t really need to recap my year—it’s already on this blog!

However, if I was to pick only one day to remember, it would be June 26, the day the US Supreme Court established 50-state marriage equality as the law of the land. Despite all the hatred and bigotry that blocked the path, ultimately love won. There’s so much more to do, not the least combatting our adversaries who have redoubled their efforts to take away the civil and human rights of LGBT Americans, but those sad people will fail—even they must know that in their dark and stony hearts.

On that June day, the only emotion felt by so many people was unbridled joy. I watched plenty of videos that day, some of which I shared on this blog, and tears rolled down my cheeks each and every time. To go from nothing to full citizen in one swift move is an extraordinary feeling, and made all my years of sacrifice so I could do LGBT activism worthwhile.

But 2015 was about so much more than just that one day, and in my previous post I shared a great video of the year’s news highlights. Many of the things in that video also showed up in this blog.

But that was then, what about what’s next? I’d like to think that I’ll make improvements this coming year, based on what I’ve learned and done in 2015—or, maybe the things I should have learned and should have done. Either way, as always, I want to keep moving forward.

So in 2016, as I have in previous years, I want to prepare more posts in advance as Roger Green does. The difference this time is that I’ve already started work on some of those 2016 posts. Trend? Fluke? Check back this time next year.

This year I made the first tentative steps toward actually using my AmeriNZ YouTube Channel. I stopped for a variety of reasons, but in 2016 I’ll be making videos—that’s a declarative statement. As I’ve said before, it’s about having the best tool to tell a story—this blog for written stories, my podcast for audio stories, and video for visual stories.

This year, too, I started making some tentative steps toward recording more AmeriNZ Podcast episodes. Those, too, will become more frequent in 2016. Like posts to this blog, I may plan and even record some episodes in advance, but my goal is to post new episodes on a more regular schedule. Jason and I also resumed recording our 2Political Podcast this year.

I hope to be able to make a positive report this time next year—don’t we all?—but it’ll be an interesting trip, regardless of what happens. Join me, won’t you?

This is my 365th post for 2015, so I have achieved my goal of an annual average of one post per day. As in previous years, thanks for your patience this month as I pushed hard to make the goal, and thanks to Roger Green for expressing confidence that I could do it. After being sick in the past week, I definitely had my doubts! The photo above is my last selfie of 2015, and was a bit of a joke: I was going to use it on the lock screen of my phone, then didn't. It got a new life here.