The Sun-Herald

See ya, 2008 - I never liked you anyway

Back in July a friend of mine, reeling from multiple, simultaneous misfortunes, declared: "If this year was a person, it would be Hitler."

"Or Mugabe," added another beleaguered buddy. "Or Milat."
I felt exactly the same way - and at that time 2008 had only half finished with us. Now, just a week away from a new year, nearly everyone I know is approaching the end of its predecessor with the same sense of exhausted relief.
One friend is calling his NYE party 'Good Riddance.' Another aims to sleep from Boxing Day through to the 31st in case 2008 has any last minute nasty tricks up its sleeve. "But then maybe I'll get bitten by the world's only fatally toxic bed bug," she says, with a bleak grin.
It seems everyone I talk to has had a monumentally crap 12 months. Their collective experiences read like a menu from hell's own cafe: bereavement, heartbreak, illness, injury, conflict, redundancy, financial reversal. All available 24 hours, seven days a week. All supersized.
Compared to other people's 2008 horror show my year was an easy ride, but it was still my worst so far: it began with a crushing betrayal and ended with the death of a dear companion. In between, a litany of lower level disappointments and losses made it a challenge to maintain my usual optimism. And with so many friends around me doing it tough, I began to believe there was some sort of curse on the supposedly auspicious 08.
This year just seemed to dwell beneath its own black cloud. Even the weather complemented the script; remember how in Sydney it rained all the way through February and into March? In those customarily sunny summer months it seemed as if the sky could not stop weeping.
Globally, 2008 delivered sorrow in gigantic, continent-spanning swathes. In May, Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar, killing at least 78,000 people. It was the worst natural disaster since the tsunami in 2004. In that same month, over 67,000 people died and hundreds of thousands more were injured when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit China's Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan Provinces. Thanks to these and a series of other natural disasters in various countries, insurers are predicting 2008 will be one of the most expensive ever for disaster-related losses.
Then there were the blighted Beijing Olympics. If you've read my previous entries you'll know how I feel about those. The achievements of our athletes came at a punishing cost to the ordinary people of China and Tibet, and I still can't help wondering if the appropriation of an international tournament symbolising peace and tolerance by a brutal, totalitarian government somehow spread a dark energy around the world.
This year's parting shots? A global economic downturn, and in Mumbai some of the most horrifying, haunting acts of terrorism yet to be seen.
Obama's election victory was of course fantastic, but he doesn't take office until 2009 so I'm counting him as next year's good news. I'm so fed up with 2008 I'm loathe to give it credit for anything positive.
But that wouldn't exactly be right. Despite the gloom, I can't remember a year when I've encountered more compassion and generosity, more demonstrations of empathy and tolerance, and more evidence of the human race's tendency towards nobility in adversity.
This year I learned to ask for help more, and offer it more. I learned that genuine kindness can come not just from close friends but from acquaintances - even strangers. Among the notoriously superficial party crowd I found there were more than a few truly decent souls and that technology can spread kindness, too. During one difficult spell I joined an Internet support group and was warmed by goodwill and understanding from people on the other side of the planet whom I'd never met.
My generation is lucky never to have experienced war close up, but I think this year there was something of the war spirit in us all, a sense of collective struggle which made us a little gentler. Perhaps a little more humble.
So grudgingly, I'll thank 2008 for that single gift. And then bring out the bubbles; let's dance on its demise.