I set out to read 52 books in 52 weeks this year. As someone who works full-time and goes to school mostly full-time and also appreciates a good, long Netflix binge, I wasn't sure if it could happen. But last night, I curled into a blanket and stayed awake until 12:30 in the morning to finish my last book of the year, a murder mystery by Gillian Flynn. So I did it. That was number 52.

I have a lot of reflections on this year of reading. About discipline, and falling into habits, and creating new ones, and redefining and relearning solitude, and what it means to spend time. And I have a lot of reflections on this list of books, too. I realized that I read a lot of books about death (The Year of Magical Thinking, When Breath Becomes Air, The Bright Hour); in some ways, that seemed fitting for 2017. I finally dug into collections of poetry (Citizen, Salt, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude) that, in other ways, restored my faith in 2017. I realized that I can read mysteries and thrillers, but still can't watch horror movies. I unashamedly read self-help books and young adult novels and memoir, and read even more of some of my favorite authors (Rob Bell, Anne Lamott, Roxane Gay), their books lining my shelves. And maybe most importantly, I realized that it doesn't matter what you like to read -- non-fiction or sci-fi or historical biographies -- as long as you read. Or not read. What matters is that you spend your free hours doing something that is good to you; maybe that is reading 52 books, or hiking 52 hikes, or doing 52 of literally anything that makes you smile/light up/feel true to yourself. What matters is that you spend your time enjoying your life.

And I loved this year of reading. The hours sitting in my bed or on my couch or at my desk, in coffee shops and the library and in bookstores. The stories and feelings and voices that met me each time I opened a book, started a chapter, read through the acknowledgments and dedication. I've kept track of every book I've read in a spreadsheet since I was a 9th grader to remember these moments, these words and titles, but I wanted to put this year in books in a separate list here. To remember, and to maybe add a few new titles to your lists, too. They're listed in the order that I read them, and then I added my top three below.

2017 in Books:

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalinithi
The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr
There Is No Good Card for This, Kelsey Crowe & Emily McDowell
Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Salt, Nayyirah Waheed
Citizen, Claudia Rankine
A Prayer Journal, Flannery O'Connor
Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson
Scrappy Little Nobody, Anna Kendrick
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle
How to Be Here, Rob Bell
Hallelujah Anyway, Anne Lamott
Shrill, Lindy West
The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence
The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer
The Odd Woman and the City, Vivian Gornick
The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, Christopher Germer
The Tao of Leadership, John Heider
The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
Why I Wake Early, Mary Oliver
You Are Therefore I Am, Satish Kumar
Difficult Women, Roxane Gay
Upstream, Mary Oliver
Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham
Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, Maria Semple
Hunger, Roxane Gay
What is the Bible?, Rob Bell
Sex Object, Jessica Valenti
The Dream of a Common Language, Adrienne Rich
Into the Water, Paula Hawkins
On Living, Kerry Egan
The Inner Voice of Love, Henri Nouwen
The Bright Hour, Nina Riggs
Dog Songs, Mary Oliver
The Princess Saves Herself in This One, Amanda Lovelace
The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur
Everything, Everything, Nicola Yoon
Turtles All the Way Down, John Green
No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July
The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel
Make It Happen, Lara Casey
Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown
Manual of the Warrior of the Light, Paulo Coelho
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, Samantha Irby
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay
The Child Finder, Rene Denfeld
Caribou, Charles Wright
Unbelievable, Katy Tur
Devotions, Mary Oliver
Dark Places, Gillian Flynn

2017's Top Three:

The Bright Hour, Nina Riggs
Upstream, Mary Oliver
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalinithi

I'm not sure I'll read 52 books again in 2018. I have more classes to take and a thesis to write and maybe a new hobby to start or resolution to make. But I went to the library this morning to stock up again, picking up four books I might try to read while in Fargo over the next five days. It's unlikely, but I'm grateful that -- among other things -- this year of reading left me wanting to read more.

When I was in middle and high school, I would spend hours cutting up magazines: words written in thick or loopy fonts, photographs and images used for stories, recipes I wanted to try when I cooked my own food one day, bullet-pointed cures for acne and steps for what to do when you encounter your crush at the grocery store. I tore the pages off, cut out the words, and pasted them into an ever-growing volume of inspiration that still sits at my mom’s house. I got such joy from this activity — one of those things where I’d lose track of time for hours, emerge from my room twenty minutes past dinnertime. I didn’t have many hobbies growing up (and still don’t), but magazine-collaging would definitely have been one of them.

Sometimes, come December, I’d take my favorite clippings and put them on a poster board. These were my new year resolutions, the words and images and feelings I hoped to embody in the coming months. I’d match colors, mix fonts, and find words like “bold” and “do your thing” that would direct my coming year. I’d post it in my room and, truthfully, often forget about it. These posters became pieces of art that blended in with the rest rather than spaces to check-in about how I showed up in the world.

I was a teenager, consumed with boys and friendship drama and figuring things out, so it makes sense that I wasn’t totally focused on self-improvement or radical change in the early 2000s. But this year, I decided to do it again. I sat down with copies of magazines that had been piling up under an end table for months, turned on a James Bay Spotify station, and began cutting up the glossy paper.

I made a vision board. And I made resolutions.

In my heart of hearts, I know that January 1st isn’t different than December 31st. I know that New Year’s Resolutions hardly ever stick past the first week, and that people use this arbitrary date to have a fresh start or to turn a new leaf or to finally begin a new chapter. To lose the weight. To read the news. To save money. You can find article after article about this, about how making grandiose resolutions is, essentially, a waste of time because it likely won’t last.

And yet, I make resolutions of some sort every year. Some are more successful (in 2014, I made a resolution to get out of the city every month and I adventured twelve times) than others (I’ve had a goal of running a half-marathon since 2012). So far, nothing has drastically changed from 2016 to 2017 except the date on my iPhone. Yet January 1st is a clean slate in my planner and, year after year, feels like a good time to reassess where I’m at and what I want to change. Flipping the calendar to a new page feels like I can do so, too.

And this year, maybe more so than others, I need that.

Because 2016 has been filled with a lot of shit. It’s been filled with so much horse shit! There, I said it. It’s been terrible for the world — we are still in a war; there’s been a steady increase of horrific violence; and climate change isn’t going anywhere just because D. Trump says it doesn’t exist. For the country — racism and homophobia and sexism have a new, loud platform; Prince and the Brady Bunch mom and the Growing Pains dad died; and that last point about D. Trump very much applies here, too. It’s been a rough 2016 for me, too. I named aloud and struggled with depression, I had all sorts of doubts about my career path, and I was thrust into romantic drama and, subsequently, heartache.

I’ve seen the news stories, the listicles, the memes, which echo the overwhelming cry from humans around the globe. And I'm adding my voice, too:

“2016 was awful. Let it be over, already.”

But December 31st, 2016 was not much different than January, 1st, 2017. While we can hope that 2017 will be better than what 2016 threw at us, we don’t know that. Donald Trump is still our president-elect. Aleppo is still burning. My heart is still a little sore. Maybe it will be enough to not see 2016 staring back at us every time we look at our calendars, phones, or email history. Maybe writing a new date on checks, job applications, or essays will be the small boost we need to help us move through the shit, the anger, and the pain that 2016 brought to us. We all deserve a chance to reset, recalibrate, and focus on a new beginning. We deserve an opportunity to wipe our hands of 2016, if we need or want to. We can’t, unfortunately, ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen — it will always be a part of our collective story as humans — but we can prepare our hands (and hearts) to hold the new, messy year ahead of us.

I wrote my resolutions on index cards and stuck them on the wall, right next to my bedroom door, with sparkly gold Washi tape. Some are new (getting a 4.0 in my first term of graduate school), some are old (I still have hopes for that half-marathon). Some will be easy (taking time to adventure each month), and some will take a lot of work (reading 52 books!). Some are action-oriented (cultivate a daily writing practice), and some are hopes for how I will exist in the world (speaking up whenever my gut tells me to, even when it’s hard). And right next to those resolutions are my 2017 collage — a vision or inspiration board, perhaps. It’s a reminder of where I’ve come from and the resolve I have to keep moving forward.

I desperately need this kind of resolve to move forward — not despite 2016, but because of it. I need to believe that the world can be better, that I can accomplish goals for self-care, work, political engagement, and school. My resolve feels clearer when I think of my resolutions for 2017 in this light. How can I use my voice and words to speak up for what I believe in, and to denounce what I do not? How can I put the privilege I have and the money I make, into causes and organizations which contribute to the world I want to live in? How can I spend my quiet hours doing something that feeds my soul, so I can be recharged each day when I enter this big, messy world?

Despite the facts and research and articles, there’s something beautiful about this public declaration of newness and of change. Maybe I will read ten books this year. Maybe another year will pass where I will not run a half-marathon. Maybe I will not speak up at times when I should. But I need to believe that I will, and then offer myself grace if I don't. I need to believe that I can fully live into my intentions, that I can do as much as I can to make my corner of this world a little bit better each day. While I hope that 2017 will bring a new light and hope for our world, for now, I’ll just start with my vision board and resolutions.

So, what is your resolve for 2017?

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2017 in books.

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