Introduction

I’ve always loved the last week of the year. It’s a week where the world stops. Where nothing happens, and nothing will happen until January 3rd. The brisk cold air and overcast clouds puts me in a certain mood. It’s a time of reflection and, for me, time for planning.

At the beginning of this year I got this feeling of cautious optimism, that we did not know what the year held. We expected nothing because after the disaster that was 2020, it was hard to see what could go right. But there was a vaccine on the horizon. Stores were open. And more importantly, Trump would be out of office. Four years of hell would finally be over. Like I said last year, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. It was going to be a slow recovery, but it looked like it was happening.

The World’s Still on Fire

What followed was an insurrection in the heart of our democracy. Mass shootings. Anti-science protests. Coups and instability around the world. More police brutality. A blizzard in Texas, a heat wave in BC, and another earthquake in Haiti. But it’s not as if we haven’t had to deal with calamities like these before. I mean, the weather patterns are new, but the world’s always been in turmoil. But also, the world is slowly coming back online. Or offline, as it were.

Locally, things were more optimistic. In addition to maintaining the country’s first female-majority legislature (60%!), Nevadans also voted to become the first and only state where gay marriage is not only officially legal, but protected under its constitution.

Also, the 2020 election resulted in two members of the DSA taking public office in Clark County: one Eighth Judicial District judge and one CCSD trustee, setting the stage for what was to come.

In March 2021, the NVDems held an election and made national news when the people who overwhelmingly voted for Bernie decided to fill all five party leadership positions with candidates backed by the DSA, leading to a mass exodus of staff from the state party.

My Year

For me though, things were somewhat more interesting than last year. I went up to Carson City twice and Reno three times for both work and pleasure and had a lot of fun each and every time. Northern Nevada is beautiful in the winter and I got to finally be where the laws of this state were made as they were being made. I went to Hawaii. I got blackout drunk at Defcon Furs; one minute I was puking into the con chair’s hotel room toilet, the next thing I know it’s 3am and I’m at home sleeping next to my partner, Chris, in our loft bed. Meaning I had to climb a ladder at some point.

In August, a mass email and my dissatisfaction with how little I was doing led me to try to get an appointment to a vacant seat in the UNLV student government, which paid off when there were two empty seats for my college and only me and someone else showed up. Partially because of said appointment, I met up with Khromatic while volunteering. Also, Chris got a job working for UNLV, so we were able to carpool. The three of us got closer over the coming weeks and eventually Chris, Chromatin, and I decided to form a triad—right before they got called to Texas for a pointless border mission that seems like it’ll never end. F*ck Governor Abbott by the way.

But the next two months were alright. Khromatic and I watched several plays and a Golden Knights game while trying to keep Chris sane, I got an easy job working A/V for the Student Union, and in October I took a week off for travel. In less than a week I flew from Las Vegas to Atlanta, bussed to Fort Gordon so I could watch my cousin graduate, flew back to Las Vegas, flew to Reno for BLFC, and flew back in time for a club meeting.

All in all, it hasn’t been a bust of a year the way 2020 was. Still, like 2020, I feel like I haven’t really done anything of worth. I’ve spent most of it depressed and with no energy to do anything more than watch a YouTube video.

Conclusion

If I had to give a theme to the new year, part of me wants to call 2022 “the return to normalcy”. But the more cautious side remembers how, in history, Nixon campaigned on a return to normalcy after the tumultuous 1960s, and how angry I felt because I recognized said return to normalcy as a return to a status quo that was unjust. All these countercultural movements were going to lead to a more fair society, but it was uncomfortable and the old guard didn’t want to be inconvenienced with riots and marches. The fact is: 2019 may not have been a bad year, but it’s hardly a year we should try and go back to. And for all we know we might not be out of the woods yet; I feel like the worry over Omicron might be overblown, but at the same time I felt the same way back in early 2020 about the novel coronavirus, so I don’t want to assume anything.

So here’s what I propose: the theme for 2022, and every year after, should be to build a better world for all. Perfection may not be possible, but we should strive for it, because the more we do, the more the world gets better. I may have said this last time, but the world is broken, and we don’t have to build the same world with the pieces. Maybe we couldn’t even if we tried anyway. For all the turmoil it seems like we’re always in, the world is definitely in a better place than it was in, say, 1942.

As for me, my New Year’s Resolution is to actually make something, to create something, and more importantly, to publish something. Starting with this.

Happy New Year.