Continuing the weekly arguments that 2016 was not all bad, I’ve created a series of posts designed to exonerate the year. This is the twelfth installment in that series.

A year ago this week there wasn’t much going on because I was on vacation. As mentioned in last week’s post I was in Florida visiting my Dad and checking out MLB spring training games with The Chef. However, the fact that I took this vacation was monumental since The Chef and I hadn’t left the state for a vacation in years. I’d never been to Florida at all. Hadn’t seen my Dad in a decade. Hadn’t seen a big league baseball game since I left Maryland (a lifetime ago). It was a trifecta of recreation.  I created escapades in 2016.

I didn’t get any writing done because I was having too much fun in the Sunshine State. I did manage to run some miles with my Dad and take my weekly self-portraits while there, some of which doubled as beach yoga. Yes, people stared.  I said yes to public frolic in 2016. 

A year ago this week I was sitting in the rain-drenched seats at Steinbrenner Field watching the Yankees play the Braves in spring training. (I have never taken a vacation that did not include rain. Even in Florida. I’m a rainmaker, folks.) I discovered that one of my long-time readers was sitting behind me somewhere in the stands. She lives in Ohio. I live far from Ohio. Yet here we both were in Florida at the same time. Thanks to social media we were able to find each other and finally meet face-to-face. A few months later while breaking up with social media I would be saddened to consider that things like this will probably never happen to me again. From that perspective this encounter was something of a miracle. And I was part of it. Therefore I was a miracle worker in 2016. 

A year ago this week my flight home laid-over in Atlanta so I got a too-short overdue visit with my sister at the terminal coffee shop. Ten years have changed us both but some things between sisters are immune to time and distance. Before we parted company I agreed to somehow move financial and logistical mountains to go back to Florida for a family reunion in three months. I had no idea how I would pull that off when I said yes. The Universe rewarded my trust with a sudden job change and the unexpected payout of all my unused vacation time so I could afford it. The irony, right?  In 2016 I made bounty appear with one spoken syllable.

I will agree that 2016 was a real bitch at times. But it was not all bad.

— Mercy