The Winona Ryder renaissance is the only good thing about 2017

Winona Ryder is back with a vengeance, and I know I'm not the only one who is elated.

Ryder's early work was prolific, and she tended to take on roles that showcased her dry wit and inherent air of cool.

Her breakout role, as Lydia in Beetlejuice, made her a permanent goth icon, an image that lead roles in movies like Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, The Crucible and Girl, Interrupted all cemented.

She was the Permanent Outsider, but not because she was socially awkward or unlikeable — she was simply above it all. And everyone loved her for it.

But in reality, Ryder was not always the unshakeable, wisecracking badass she played again and again onscreen. She was a regular human being, susceptible to the same pitfalls and challenges that we all face.

And in 2001, those came to a head when Ryder was arrested for shoplifting more than $5,000 of merchandise from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverley Hills, an incident that disrupted her career for the next decade and a half.

Ryder later said that she was dealing with anxiety and depression at the time of the incident, and that painkillers she was taking at the time, prescribed by a "quack doctor" after an arm injury, left her in a kind of fugue state that affected her judgement.

But despite the fact that this crime was non-violent, despite the fact that Winona ended up completing community service and psychological counseling for the incident, she was essentially shunned from the public eye for the next decade.

She didn't appear onscreen in a major production again until 2010, when she had appeared in Black Swan as a bitter former ballerina. The role was small, but critically well-received, and it reminded audiences of Ryder's onscreen chops.

Then, Ryder slipped back into the shadows, taking on bit roles and TV spots until Netflix released Stranger Things in 2016.

In Stranger Things, we were graced with Ryder at her sharpest and most haunting in her role as Joyce Byers, a mother desperately searching for her missing son. And a year later, on the heels of the release of Stranger Things's second season, she's back in the spotlight, obviously thriving.

And culturally, we are so much better for it.

We literally can't get enough of her. She's gracing magazine covers right and left, her red carpet pictures go viral on a regular basis, and it was her birthday on Sunday — my Scorpio queen! Even her Stranger Things costars seem enamored of her.

Did Ryder deserve to be shunned for shoplifting from a department store in 2001? Depends on your definition of justice. I definitely don't think so. But at the end of the day, time out of the spotlight seemed to do Winona a lot of good.

She never clung desperately to her old vestiges of fame by staging publicity stunts or took shitty, soulless roles to get her back onscreen.

Even if Ryder wasn't initially in control of her fall from grace, she's clearly at the reigns and better than ever right now. And we are so, so lucky to have her.

@k80way