Welcome to 2010. Fun writing it out, isn't it? And yet I'm sure that come March, I'll still be mistakenly dating every form with "09." Seriously though, it's a huge change. After ten years of the 00s, my hand is automatically programmed to write a "0" after "20" when writing out the date. This will undoubtedly take some serious physical and mental effort, but I think I can do it.
Ah, the end of a decade-- and the beginning of a new one. It's intriguing how we put time into neat little packages: decades, centuries, millenia, etc. The benefit is immense for the purposes of recording and retelling history. Without organization, history is a giant mess of nouns: people, places, and things. Centuries provide order to the chaos of a millenia; decades provide order to the chaos of a century.
For weeks, the much-hyped coming of 2010 produced an endless array of "Top ___ of the Decade" lists pertaining to 00s politics, pop culture and everything in between. In addition, social and cultural commentators have also attempted to give a title to the 00s as a whole, i.e. "The Decade of [fill in the blank]". But such all-encompassing labels can seem a bit lofty and premature-- has enough time passed to gain any real insight? What happened to retrospect? (Then again, VH1 did premiere its "I Love the New Millenium" series back in 2007.) However, the urge to sum up our life experiences and draw some kind of meaning from them is only natural. We're reflective creatures, be it by nature or nuture's doing.
I couldn't help but notice that an an overwhelming amount of these assessments of the 2000s have been extremely negative. Commentators highlight (lowlight?) September 11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, various natural disasters, and the current economic crisis as key low points. Monikers such as "The Decade of Decadence" have sprouted up. I've even seen one writer label the 2000s as "The Decade Where Nothing Happened" (a gross misnomer; that simply isn't true). But every decade has its fair share of tragedies, so why crucify the "aughts" (that's what we're calling them now, I think) in particular?
Speaking from personal experience, I quite literally lived through one of these disasters when I fled up the West Side Highway for safety on September 11. Yet do I consider this the single most memorable moment of the decade? And on a broader scale, did growing up in the US during the "war on terror" permanently taint my experiences? No, and no. These events are undeniably significant (and awful), but they're not the first things that come to mind when I reflect on the 00s.
For myself and for an entire generation of early twentysomethings, the 2000s are my quintessential coming-of-age decade. The "aughts" are especially fitting of the label, since my high school and college years fit back-to-back into it (2001-2005, 2005-2009). It was near-perfect storybook timing. And generally speaking, it feels good knowing that I've come a long way in the past ten years. 2000 saw me as a skittish adolescent. Exiting 2009, I can proudly say that I'm slightly less skittish. Okay, fine-- a lot less. While I've got a lot of living left to do, the 2000s may turn out to be most critical period of my emotional development and self-discovery. There's an undoubtedly enormous gap between the 12-year-old girl and the 22-year-woman.
Personally, 2009 was perhaps my most bipolar year ever (the year, not me!). Whereas the highs were like a trip up to the clouds and back, the lows were like wounds that couldn't stop bleeding. College graduation was the epitome of bittersweetness: an amazing accomplishment that simultaneously stripped me of the life I'd grown to love, four years in the making. Couple that with the departure of my significant other to the west coast for a possibly indefinite time period, for which I had to force the thought of life without her down my throat (a terrible taste). Luckily, two important things happened: I got a job, and she came back.
Honestly, if I was able to make it through 2009-- the good, the bad, and the ugly-- then I can get through anything. With a strange and unprecedented bravery, I'm ready for new things, as long as I get a grip on those bursts of nostalgia. True, I still miss the pre-grad era, but at this point I've had eight whole months to process post-grad living. The physical calendar change from 2009 to 2010 wills me to go forward in a mentally encouraging way. With '09 gone, there's no turning back now (I meant to post this entry on New Year's Eve, but as usual, the real world got in the way-- as much as I try, it's impossible to be a full-time dodger).
Of course, I still find myself emotionally clinging to the 2000s. How could I not? The past ten years will always be a part of me, but they don't have to weigh me down. Instead, let them be balloons, lighter than air, that I'll hold on tight to. And if the 00s are balloons, let the 10s be the vast, sweeping sky above.
Up up and away.
