2017, this is what I hope for you.

I hope you will be a year full of smiles and laughs, instead of tears and regrets. I hope you will be a year that is full of gifts, not of material items, but of good friends and good company.

I hope you will be full of lessons. The kind that will change the way I think about the world, and the kind that will keep me humbled and grounded. I hope you give me lessons that will stay with me for years to come.

I hope you will be full of good friendships. Not the kind that compares and contrasts, but the kind that is whole hearted and genuine. I hope you lead me to people who love me and lift me up, instead of bring me down.

I hope you will be full of days that are filled to the brim with excitement and thrills.

I hope you will give me some days of sadness, that will make me grateful for the happier days.

I hope you will give everyone the chance to have a better life. The chance to keep fighting, and to tell our stories to listening ears. I hope you give everyone the chance to keep working hard at what we want and need.

I hope you will be kind when I make the mistakes that I inevitably will make. I hope you grant me more patience and self love with myself and with my body.

I hope you give me days of the kind of love that I long for. Of kisses that send me tingles to every bone in my body. Of hugs that make me feel safe.

I hope you will be full of new opportunities. Of new experiences that leave people shining with pride. I hope you will be full of do-overs and new beginnings. I hope you will be full of forgiveness and apologies.

I hope you will be full of fairness and love instead of hatred and ignorance. I hope you will have compassion for all human beings no matter their skin color, religion or sexuality, and I hope you rid the world of any kind of violence.

I hope you can fill the world with love and understanding.

And above all, I hope you can give us all hope.

Hope that this world is full of decent human beings, full of caring and kind individuals who want to help one another. I hope you give us all the love that we so desperately need. And I hope you are full of the best days our lives.

2017, I pray you are the year that everything changes. The year that the hopeless can hope, the year that the unlovable can love, and the year the lonely can finally find company.

I hope you are everything that 2016 wasn’t.