This year was rough, and so many of my 2016 "favorites" were things that helped keep me distracted amidst all the crap that happened over the last 12 months. So, in no particular order, here's my annual list that I probably won't keep doing in the future because monthly favorites are way easier to keep track of than these end-of-the-year giant roundups that, inevitably, leave out many things from the first half of the year...

One disclaimer: not everything on this list came out in 2016. I'm just really late to things.

(Also, in preparation for my end-of-the-year lists, I asked my friends on Facebook what some of their favorite pop culture things were in 2016, and their super cool and interesting answers reminded me how behind I am on pretty much everything.)

The first photo I took from my apartment living room.

People often call New York City the greatest city in the world, though when I first moved here, I was warned that I would constantly feel exhausted just trying to walk down a sidewalk. And it ended up being very true, in my first year especially – whether it was on the streets or down in the subway, the amount of people constantly surrounding me became so overwhelming that all I wanted to do at the end of the day was shut my bedroom door and not talk to a single soul.

The last five years have been as exhilarating as they have been draining. When I look back at old blog posts or diary entries or letters from high school and college, I was never shy about declaring that someday I would live in New York. I'm glad I did it and I don't regret getting on that bus in 2012 with just two suitcases and a backpack, praying that I would find a place to live and a job one day.

But lately – the past 18 months especially – I've felt somewhat frozen in time. New York felt less like "home" to me in 2016 than ever before, and it hit me so suddenly back in the beginning of the year that my head and my heart were just no longer here. All of the excuses and the reasons I'd given for being in New York just no longer held up. I think I'll get into all this in a separate post because what I really want to talk about right now are the things I'll miss about New York. For as much shit as I've talked on this city, I've had some amazing moments here too, and I don't want to leave only remembering the bad stuff.

When you're a nostalgic person like I am, it can often turn into becoming a bit of a pack rat. I used to savor movie ticket stubs as if they were snapshots of the film itself, every coffee stain on a page of a book reminded me of a place or time, and even worn out pens had a story to tell.

But since I left home for college, I've moved every year (in D.C., I moved every month), and in the process, some of those things went into storage boxes or got lost to the wind. Sometimes, I'd carry things from place to place, even if they were never unpacked, because having them was some sort of comfort that I could learn from the past: from the mistakes, from the stories, from the triumphs.

When I moved to New York in 2012, I had no sense of how long I would stay – let alone, how long I would stay in one apartment. 2016 is coming to an end, and I've been in the same room. Sure, there's now a bit more furniture (and a lot more books), but this one space has been mine for almost five years.

I'm in this process of throwing a lot of stuff out. The idea is to tackle the room in sections – corner by corner, drawer by drawer – and re-examine the importance of holding onto items that aren't exactly necessary to keep in my life. In doing so, it's also led me to a box filled with old bank statements and birthday cards and deeply personal letters exchanged with friends from the other side of the country and, occasionally, the other side of the world.

Warning: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life spoilers ahead.

Yes, we stayed up until 6 a.m. marathoning all four mini-movies straight. There was lots of coffee and snacks involved. And now that it's all done (I'm debating whether a re-watch is necessary for any deeper analysis right now, but I'm also very sleepy), yes – I have thoughts.

But rather than wait until I decide to re-watch it all now or not, I wanted to jot down some initial reactions because posting anything on social media right now is cruel and I don't want to accidentally spoil anything for anyone.

So, this post has spoilers. Seriously. Last chance to duck out.

When Jimi Hendrix took the stage the morning of August 19, 1969, at Woodstock, he launched into a guitar solo of the "Star-Spangled Banner." It was unrehearsed, but not new — he's played the anthem on stage plenty of times; on that Monday morning, he was filling time. Delay after delay had pushed his set and by Monday, a large part of the crowd had left. Not that that took away from the power of the moment: if you listen closely to the live recording, it's both gritty and pure and, I would argue, patriotic at a time when patriotism was being questioned.

Some people called it disrespectful, but what I don't think they got was that, in those four minutes, the "Star-Spangled Banner" was more than just a song. Hendrix made the National Anthem an anthem for a generation of people who felt that their country didn't care about them, a country that was drafting them to war to die. And if you listen carefully to the way Hendrix jumps from fret to fret, interrupting his own interruptions with Taps, using (some say, overusing) the whammy bar and wah-wah pedal in a way that's distinct to his sound, you'll hear imperfection that tells a story people weren't sure how to articulate. At that last note, there's a sustained silence, and then Hendrix launches into E7#9, known as the Hendrix chord, that begins "Purple Haze," a song unambiguously about getting high.

When asked about it later, Hendrix didn't talk about the performance as a protest or a symbol. "I thought it was beautiful," he said. It was.

Because even with the "unpatriotic" interruption, Hendrix remained unapologetic in his art. Because even if it felt like the country was turning against you, the music could still go on. As long as we create — unapologetically — we can change it.